Leadership for Lawyers - Executive Course 2026

Shannon Finch

Shannon Finch joined Westpac in November 2021 as a Group Executive and leads Westpac’s global legal function. She is the executive sponsor of the RESPECT Employee Advocacy Group, focused on domestic and family violence‑related issues, the executive sponsor for Westpac’s Walk for a Cure initiative, and an executive mentor for the Generation Valuable program.

Shannon began her legal career at the Commonwealth Attorney‑General’s Department in Canberra before joining Mallesons Stephen Jaques (now Mallesons) where she practised in litigation, mergers and acquisitions, and capital markets for 25 years across Canberra, London and Sydney, including serving as Head of the Sydney office. Following her time at Mallesons, she joined global corporate law firm Jones Day as a Senior Partner in its mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and financial markets practices, based in Sydney.

Shannon is an executive member of the Business Law Executive Section of the Law Council of Australia and chaired the Corporations Committee from 2018 to 2021. She has extensive experience as a non‑executive director, including as former Deputy Chair of Forward Ability Support. Reflecting her strong commitment to philanthropy and the arts, Shannon is currently a Director of Bell Shakespeare. She is also a member of the AICD Law Committee, Chief Executive Women Australia, and the Australian Corporate Counsel GC100, and is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia.

Shannon has been widely recognised by industry awards, including Australasian Lawyer’s Most Influential Lawyers (Changemaker and Corporate Lawyer of the Year), the Legal 500 GC Powerlist, Best Lawyers Australia (GC of the Year), and Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Awards (GC of the Year) (2025).

Anthony Kearns

Anthony Kearns is an expert facilitator, adult educator, coach and humanist who helps expert professionals navigate complexity to lead change and performance in human systems. He is also an accomplished leader in his own right, having consistently led high-performing professional teams throughout his career.

Anthony has worked as a litigation lawyer, risk management consultant, OD practitioner and senior executive in insurance, large law firms and an international engineering company. He is a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Law School where he teaches leadership as part of the Master of Law program. He has also lectured at a number of US Law Schools including Harvard where he has been a visiting lecturer since 2010 and helped design the HLS executive education program and the first law school course on the psychology of judgment and decision making.

Anthony has honours degrees in Law and Science from the Australian National University, a Master of Applied Positive Psychology (Valedictorian) from the University of Melbourne and has completed the Teaching and Learning Program at the Hasso Plattner Design School at Stanford University. He is an experienced executive coach and is accredited in Solutions-focused Coaching, Immunity to Change Facilitation, Appreciative Inquiry Facilitation, Meyer Salovey and Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), Life Styles Inventory (LSI) and Belbin Team Profile. He is also an accredited mindfulness teacher.

Rosamund Christie

Rosamund Christie is the Director of ‘To the Point Communications’, a leadership and communications consultancy that addresses complex issues facing CEOs, senior executive / senior management teams and individuals. It provides programs and executive coaching tailored to the organisational system and context in which people are working, focusing on leadership in complex environments, organisational transformation and the development of personal agency in leadership. 

Rosamund is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at UNSW. She is one of Australia’s leading facilitators of Adaptive Leadership, with programs for clients including Department of Defence, NAB, CSIRO, the Australian Public Service Commission, the university sector, and for-purpose organisations.

Rosamund has an MA from University of Sydney and is a graduate of The Art and Practice of Adaptive Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

She is a Board member of Professional Individualised care (PIC) which is a relationship-based model of out-of-home care for young people who have lived with complex trauma.

Professor Michael Legg

Professor Legg is a Professor of UNSW Law + Justice and Director of the Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession.

Michael specialises in complex litigation, including regulatory litigation and class actions, and in innovation in the legal profession.

Michael’s research interests are in complex litigation, the use of technology in litigation and the future of the legal profession.  He has previously written on the use of technology assisted review in litigation, online dispute resolution / courts and the ramification of social media and the Internet of Things for civil litigation. 

Michael is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and a member of the Law Council of Australia's Class Actions Committee. 

Michael is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of NSW, Federal Court of Australia, High Court of Australia and in the State and Federal courts of New York.  He holds law degrees from UNSW (LLB), the University of California, Berkeley (LLM) and the University of Melbourne (PhD).

Dr Felicity Bell

Dr. Felicity Bell is a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession at UNSW Law and Justice.

Felicity has studied lawyers and their work for over a decade. She is internationally recognised as an expert in family law and legal professionalism, and in new technologies and their impact on lawyers’ practice and regulation. Her research combines her expertise across these areas often with a basis in empirical projects. She is the co-author with Professor Michael Legg of Artificial Intelligence and the Legal Profession (Hart, 2020). Felicity has previously worked as a lawyer in private practice and in government.

Vicki McNamara

Vicki McNamara is a Senior Research Associate with the Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession at Law & Justice, UNSW and a highly experienced legal sector professional, admitted to practice law in NSW.

Vicki’s previous professional experience spans both legal practice and senior business management roles at global and Australian law firms, and with legal operations teams in the financial services and FMCG sectors.

Vicki has a proven track record of designing and implementing Knowledge Management (KM) and legal technology strategies, solutions, and systems that leverage enterprise knowledge to enhance service delivery, operational efficiency, and business performance. Vicki’s management competencies include KM framework development and governance; knowledge and research services management; technology acquisition, project management and delivery; business management and planning; process redesign and transformation, and innovation strategy delivery.