Follow us

Natalie is an employment lawyer with a focus on enterprise bargaining and industrial disputes.

Natalie is particularly passionate about partnering with clients to develop tailored bargaining strategies, and to implement contingencies to protect the business from industrial action. She advises clients in a broad range of employee relations areas, including industrial relations disputes, bargaining strategies, general employment matters, workplace privacy issues, general protection claims, unfair dismissal and equal opportunity complaints.

Natalie’s four client secondments have enhanced her understanding of business and the importance of delivering practical and commercial legal advice. She prides herself on knowing her clients’ businesses and the industries in which they operate. Natalie has worked closely with clients on a range of matters across sectors such as energy, manufacturing, retail, aviation, banking, and transport and infrastructure.

Natalie regularly appears for clients in the Fair Work Commission as a solicitor-advocate, and has obtained favourable outcomes for clients in a range of disputes. Natalie is also an accomplished public speaker and is often called upon to provide her thought leadership at seminars and conferences. As an experienced adult educator, Natalie regularly conducts training on a broad range of issues including enterprise bargaining, workplace behaviour, legislative reform, workplace privacy, and managing complex equal opportunity, bullying and misconduct cases.

Clients recognise and appreciate Natalie’s approachability and her determination to understand their philosophy and strategy for employees. Natalie provides commercial and proactive advice, dynamically approaching problems from multiple angles. Recent client feedback includes “She’s a great advocate… never drops the ball and will move mountains to get the work done” and that she “has the ability to think outside the square, to challenge established ways of operating and to press her opinion in the face of inertia or fear from decision makers”.

 

Background

Natalie holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and a Bachelor of Arts (Psych) from Deakin University. She is admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court, Federal Courts and the Supreme Court of Victoria. Natalie is a member of the Law Institute of Victoria.

Experience & expertise

Selected matters

  • partnering with a large retailer to develop its enterprise bargaining strategy in a very complex negotiating environment, which ultimately led to the approval of the relevant agreement
  • successfully advocating in the Fair Work Commission to obtain urgent orders for the cessation of unprotected industrial action taking place at an oil refinery
  • obtaining a favourable outcome for a large bank in a dispute concerning its redeployment obligations following redundancy
  • successfully defending an injunction application for a client in the waste services industry in a disability discrimination dispute
  • advising a client on the cessation of its Australian manufacturing operations, including the implementation of its redundancy program and successfully defending related litigious proceedings