Hon Justice Michael Lee
Justice Lee commenced work as a solicitor in 1989 with a firm that later became one of Australia's largest national partnerships. He was made a senior associate of the firm in 1992 and was appointed its youngest partner, in 1995. He eventually became a senior litigation partner and national practice group leader before coming to the New South Wales Bar in 2002.
Justice Lee developed a nationwide and eclectic practice and acted in a very broad range of superior court matters at both first instance and on appeal. He took silk, after nine years, in 2011. Both before and after taking silk he acted primarily in civil proceedings although he dabbled in the criminal law.
While at the Bar, his Honour was involved in many high-profile cases including Australia’s longest running defamation case (John Marden), Australia’s only political assassination case (Phoung Ngo) and a number of cases involving political controversy (such as acting for the Legislative Council of New South Wales in various battles against the executive government and the action by James Ashby against Peter Slipper).
More significantly, however, he was briefed as leading counsel in many of the most significant commercial actions in Australia. In this role, he was at the forefront of all the developments with regard to class actions over a generation. He was briefed in so many class actions that at his swearing-in as a judge, the President of the New South Wales Bar Association said that it was quite possible that Justice Lee “acted for the direct interests of more individuals than any barrister in the history of Australia”. His Honour was also actively involved in a number of legally aided matters, pro bono and public interest cases.
While at the Bar, his Honour appeared primarily in Sydney and Melbourne but also conducted cases in every superior State and Territory Court throughout the Commonwealth.
Justice Lee was appointed to the Federal Court of Australia in 2017 and is also an Additional Judge of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. His Honour deals with matters at both first instance and on appeal. He is also a National Coordinating Judge in the Federal Court’s Commercial and Corporations National Practice Area and also of the defamation work of the Court.
Greg Coleman
Greg Coleman is a Senior Partner of Milberg with over 30 years of trial and appellate experience. his practice focuses on class actions, products liability, medical malpractice, personal injury, complex multi-district litigation, litigation, toxic torts, premises liability, ERISA, ERISA class actions, and drug and medical device litigation.
Greg has been and is currently involved in complex product liability and drug product liability litigation, having tried more than one hundred (110) jury trials and countless other bench trials during his career. He has tried jury trials in several states and has been admitted pro hac vice in complex matters around the country.
Greg is certified as a Civil Trial Advocacy Specialist and as a Civil Pretrial Advocacy Specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Tennessee Bar Association, and the Knoxville Bar Association. He has been named one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers by the American Trial Lawyers Association.
Greg has been named by the US News and World Report as one of the best lawyers in the country. He was recently recognized as one of the 2024 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America. Named the 2024, 2018, and 2016 Knoxville Lawyer of the Year for Product Liability Litigation, Mr. Coleman is featured in The Best Lawyers in America in the categories of plaintiff litigation, personal injury, and product liability. Additionally, Mr. Coleman has been recognized as one of Knoxville’s Top Attorneys in six separate categories.
A lifetime member of the prestigious Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Greg has been renowned for securing multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements. He is a Charter member of the Knoxville Chapter of the American Inns of Court and a member of the American Association for Justice and Public Justice. He has been featured in Newsweek Magazine in their Showcase of Nationwide Top Attorneys. He has also served as a guest lecturer and speaker on Advanced Trial Advocacy and at national seminars, in addition to authoring published materials regarding advanced trial strategy and ethics seminars.
In addition, he has both spoken and chaired panels internationally in London and Amsterdam at numerous global class action and complex litigation conferences, attended by lawyers and judges from all over the world. He is the firm’s Senior Partner involved in their London and Amsterdam offices, handling complex class, mass GLO (General Litigation Order), and related cases. He is also involved in the firm’s joint venture agreements, handling cases in Portugal and Australia.
Vicky Antzoulatos
Based in Sydney, Vicky Antzoulatos is the Joint Head of Class Actions for Shine Lawyers. Working with a team of carefully selected legal professionals, Vicky strives to bring justice and recognition to individuals across Australia who have suffered as a result of corporate wrongdoing. Vicky has a comprehensive understanding of the class actions legal space, with almost 25 years as a legal professional.
Vicky graduated from Macquarie University with a Bachelor of Laws and was awarded the Lionel Murphy Memorial prize for labour law. She went on to study her Masters of Laws at Sydney University. She was admitted to practise in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1999. Since her admission, Vicky has worked almost exclusively in class actions and commercial litigation, including representative proceedings in Australia using Part IVA of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and its cognates in state jurisdictions.
Vicky has conducted significant class actions against public authorities and international corporations in different areas of law including securities, financial services, consumer, employment and social justice. The cases that she has led at Shine Lawyers include cases against Carnival Corporation, the Royal Bank of Scotland, McDonalds and BSA.
Vicky has conducted numerous legal education presentations on class actions and is regularly sought out by Australian media to provide comment on industry developments.
Craig Allsopp
As the Joint Head of Class Actions, Craig has almost 20 years of experience in class actions and large-scale litigation in both private and public sectors. He has worked on some of Australia’s highest-profile shareholder class actions, including a claim against Worley Limited — the first shareholder class action to go on appeal in Australia. In 2022, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia delivered a ground-breaking judgment in favour of Worley shareholders.
Craig and his team have commenced several shareholder and financial services class actions in the Federal Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of Victoria. These include claims against A2 Milk, AMP Insurance, Beach Energy, Blue Sky, CBA CommInsure, Iluka, Insignia Financial (formerly IOOF) and Nuix.
Through these claims, he strives to obtain justice for thousands of people impacted by the misconduct of corporations, the big banks and major financial service institutions.
Craig has also held a number of senior roles including Principal at ACA Lawyers, Principal and Director at Allygroup Legal Consultants and Senior Lawyer/Legal Manager at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Zoë Hillman
Zoë Hillman was called to the Bar in 2013 and practises from Alinea Chambers. She acts for both representative plaintiffs and defendants in a wide range of complex class actions. Zoë has appeared at trial and on settlement approval applications in a number of mass tort class actions, including Stanford v DePuy International Ltd (No 6) [2016] FCA 1452, Gill v Ethicon Sarl (No 5) [2019] FCA 1905 and Sanda v PTTEP Australasia (Ashmore Cartier) Pty Ltd (No 7) [2021] FCA 237. She has also acted for class action settlement administrators on complex Court applications, including in Casey v Depuy International Ltd (Appeal From Independent Counsel) [2023] FCA 254.
Julian Sexton SC
Julian Sexton was admitted to the Bar in 1984 and appointed senior counsel in 1999. He has a broad appellate practice, with over 30 years’ experience in general commercial and common law, with an emphasis on insurance related litigation and class actions. Julian’s practice areas include equity, consumer, building & construction, real property, personal injury, admiralty and transport law. His class action experience spans across Supreme and Federal Courts and includes major actions such as the Queensland floods class action, the Ruby Princess class action and Montara oil spill class action.
Kione Johnson
Kione Johnson is a Practice Leader in Shine Lawyers’ Class Actions team. Prior to joining Shine Lawyers, Kione spent 13 years at a top tier international law firm. Most recently, Kione was a Special Counsel leading a Dispute Resolution team and major, complex disputes focusing on multi-million-dollar class actions. Notably, Kione successfully defended the Queensland Government dam authority Seqwater in $1 billion class action proceedings arising from the 2011 Brisbane floods. This included a lengthy trial that spanned more than 130 hearing days, an appeal to the NSW Court of Appeal and a High Court special leave application – one of Australia's largest ever class actions.
Kione was recognised as one of Lawyerly’s Litigation Rising Stars in 2021, and in Doyle’s Guide Rising Stars for Litigation and Dispute Resolution in 2015, 2016 and 2020.
Lina Kolomoitseva
Lina Kolomoitseva is a Senior Investment Manager with Litigation Capital Management, a leading Australian litigation funder operating globally and listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Lina has twice been recognised by LawDragon in the list of “100 Global Leaders in Litigation Finance”, and recently co-authored the first edition of the Australian Chapter of the “Chambers and Partners Litigation Funding Global Practice Guide”.
With a particular interest in class actions, Lina has a decade of experience in the funding of complex disputes in Australian jurisdictions and internationally and, prior to that, a further decade of experience in private practice.
In her time with LCM, Lina has led the funder’s management of numerous significant representative actions, which has most recently included Haswell v the Commonwealth, Adeva Home Solutions v Queensland Motorways Management, J&J Richards Super Pty Ltd v Linchpin Capital Group, and many others.
Lina also brings her experience to bear as a member of LCM’s Investment Committee for the Asia Pacific and European regions, and in advancing LCM’s broader industry initiatives, including regulation advocacy and funding product development and education.
Amanda Beattie
Amanda Beattie is the Head of Class Actions at Wotton Kearney. She has worked in the class actions space since 2009 and acted for financial institutions, professional services firms and government departments across a range of different types of matters. Her broader litigation experience includes large-scale commercial arbitration and litigation, ASIC investigations and Royal Commissions. She has particular experience in the highly regulated financial services sector and the public sector, having defended the Department of Defence, Multiplex, Westpac, Citibank, Colonial, Suncorp and NAB. Her recent matters include environmental claims, employment matters and shareholder class actions. Amanda has practiced in Australia and Hong Kong.
Kirsten Smith
Kristen Smith is the Portfolio Manager – Australia and a Senior Investment Manager for Omni Bridgeway. She is responsible for overseeing the Australian funded investments portfolio and matters under due diligence, taking a leading role in supporting the Australian investments team. Kristen also assists with the development and execution of business strategy in the region.
Kristen joined Omni Bridgeway in 2015 and has led numerous successfully resolved disputes which have collectively generated more than $100 million in recoveries for claimants. She has also developed novel financing products to assist law firms achieve their growth strategies. Kristen has assisted a wide variety of claimants pursue their claims, including listed companies, SMEs and private individuals.
Prior to joining Omni Bridgeway, Kristen worked in one of Australia’s most successful class action teams. Over her time in practice, Kristen worked in both the class action and commercial litigation teams. She has extensive class action experience and has also worked on insolvency matters, commercial disputes, and several high profile out-of-court dispute resolution schemes with major financial institutions. Kristen brings a strategic, client-centred, and commercial mindset to complex litigation to assist claimants to achieve their desired outcomes.
Kristen has also worked for Dundas & Wilson (now CMS) in Scotland and was formerly an Associate to the Supreme Court of Victoria’s Associate Justice Efthim. Kristen serves as the Vice President on the board of MESS Ltd, a not-for-profit arts organization.
Alex Morris
Alex is one of Australia’s leading complex commercial litigation and regulatory inquiry partners. Alex regularly provides strategic advice to executive management and boards of listed companies and major financial intermediaries on significant corporate litigation, regulatory inquiries and parliamentary hearings, with a particular focus on financial services, governance issues and white-collar misconduct. Alex is recognised by Chambers and Legal 500 in Dispute Resolution, Class Actions and financial services regulation.
Michael Hodge KC
Michael took silk in 2017 and has since been recognised as ‘one of the new generation of leading silks at the Australian Bar’ by Legal 500. Michael is experienced in various areas of law and is highly regarded for his expertise in complex commercial disputes, class actions, corporate law and competition matters nationwide.
Michael holds rankings in both Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 for his expertise in commercial disputes and competition law, and is listed by Best Lawyers for litigation, competition law, public law, and regulatory law.
He is also recognised by Doyle’s Guide for his work in competition law, as well as his collaboration with government agencies to defend class actions involving Robodebt, climate change disclosure, and energy prices.
Jonathan Wertheim
Jonathan is a seasoned litigator with over 17 years of experience in complex commercial disputes and class actions, including managing trials and appeals. He has a particular focus on securities class actions and has played a key role in running some of the most high-profile securities cases in Australia, most notably the Worley class action. Jonathan also has considerable experience managing multiplicity disputes and working in co-operation with other major firms on consolidated class actions, and was involved in a recent hearing before the Full Court on the question of the Court’s power to make a Solicitors Common Fund Order.
John Walker
John is one of the most experienced litigation funders not only in Australia but in the world and has been at the forefront of the industry for over two decades. John has participated in over 500 funded claims over the past 25 years.
John was co-founder of arguably the world’s largest funder, IMF Bentham (now known as Omni Bridgeway) in 2001. In 2016 John established and led the Australian litigation funder, Investor Claim Partner.
John is the Chairman of the Association of Litigation Funders of Australia, which actively engages with government, legislators, regulators and other policy makers to shape the regulatory environment for litigation funding in Australia.