Laura accepts briefs to appear and advise in all areas of law. She has broad legal expertise across public, regulatory, consumer, administrative, and planning law, and particular subject matter expertise in the environment and climate change.
Since coming to the bar, Laura has been briefed in:
- planning and land acquisition/compensation matters
- misleading conduct matters concerning the substantiability of environmental claims (including civil penalty proceedings for the regulator)
- complex judicial review cases including relating to decisions about major projects
- environmental protection matters.
Before coming to the bar, Laura practised as a solicitor at DLA Piper (in the planning and environment team), and was an academic at Sydney and Melbourne Universities. At Sydney, she served as Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law, and created and taught the LLM subject Environmental and Climate Science in Court. At Melbourne, she served as the Foote postdoctoral fellow in Climate Solutions at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, where she advised government and industry on matters relating to climate change, and taught Environmental Law (LLM) and Sustainability Governance and Leadership (MEnv).
Laura holds a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Melbourne (Planning and Environmental Law Prize); a Master of Environment (First Class Hons, Dean’s Prize); and a PhD in environmental and climate law, supervised by Professors Jackie Peel and Margaret Young (APA Award; Endeavour Australia Award). She attended Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Law as a visiting scholar, and Oxford’s Faculty of Law as a visiting academic, before commencing her postdoctoral fellowship.
Laura is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, and a member of the Biodiversity Working Group of the National Environmental Law Association.
She read with Katherine Brazenor and her senior mentors are Juliet Forsyth SC and Emrys Nekvapil SC.
Her surname is pronounced “Skay-ers”.
*Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards legislation.
