Julia O’Connor is a commercial litigator and advocate with a practice spanning complex commercial disputes and mining, energy and resources, and environmental law. Prior to being called to the Bar in 2015, Julia spent 8 years as a solicitor practising almost exclusively in complex commercial litigation, including as Special Counsel in a national commercial litigation team.

Julia’s commercial practice encompasses disputes in competition and consumer law, corporations law and insolvency, commercial equity, banking and finance, commercial property and contract. She has appeared for clients including the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Securities and Exchange Board of India, and has experience in trusts and tracing, receivership and corporate insolvency disputes, and shareholder and director disputes under the Corporations Act. Her experience includes appearances in courts and tribunals in both state and federal jurisdictions, as well as appearances in commissions of inquiry such as the Grantham Floods Commission of Inquiry and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Julia also has a substantial practice in mining, energy and resources, and environmental law. She regularly appears in cases before the Land Court of Queensland and the Land Appeal Court for mining proponents, statutory parties, landholders and objectors, and has acted in environmental appeals, mining compensation disputes, land access disputes and mining objections proceedings.

Within this practice, Julia has particular experience in the climate change dimensions of resource development approvals. She has appeared in objections proceedings in which climate change – including the relevance of Scope 3 (downstream combustion) emissions and the interaction between climate impacts and human rights – was a central contested issue, including Waratah Coal Pty Ltd v Youth Verdict Ltd & Ors (No 6) [2022] QLC 21, the first case in which a Queensland Court comprehensively considered the application of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) in the context of climate-related objections to a coal mine. Julia is regularly called upon to advise on, and present publicly about, the practical and legal implications of climate change for resource proponents and statutory decision-makers.

Currently, Julia is a member of the Queensland Environmental Law Association and sits on the Bar Association of Queensland’s Environmental, Planning and Property Law Committee.