Ella is a passionate community lawyer committed to a career in social justice, particularly in roles responding to family violence and gender in-equality.

Ella has worked as a lawyer in Community Legal Centre’s since she began practicing law in 2016. She began her legal career as a legal information volunteer at Women’s Legal Service SA whilst completing her PLT. Ella then moved to regional South Australia in 2016 and spent two years as a solicitor at the Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention Legal Service. In late 2018, Ella moved to Melbourne and began working at Northern Community Legal Centre as a generalist community lawyer for refugee and newly arrived migrant clients. In June 2019, Ella moved back into a Family Violence role at NCLC which included providing the Applicant/AFM Duty Lawyer service at Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court in the Family Violence Intervention Order list.

Ella’s time working as a family violence lawyer has not only intensified her passion for combating family violence but has ignited a passion for police accountability after hearing countless client stories of police failures in relation to family violence.

Estelle is our Changing the Story; Policing Family Violence senior litigation lawyer.

Estelle began her sector career at Women’s Legal Service Victoria (WLSV) where she coordinated a strategic litigation and research project “Small Claims, Large Battles”, which looked at the economic wellbeing for women in the family law system, especially where they have experienced family violence.  The project has since led to a number of reforms to family law processes for low income women with small asset pools, including a pilot list (PPP500) in the Federal Circuit Court and changes to legislation to improve access to super in property settlements.  Estelle was also the data analysis and evaluation officer at WLSV, and loves data and excel.

More recently, Estelle spent 3 years as a litigator in the commercial dispute resolution team at King & Wood Mallesons (KWM).  Estelle was heavily involved in pro bono work and litigation at KWM, as the deputy chair of the Human Rights Law Group, assisting in matters concerning judicial review, constitutional law and refugee rights.

Gregor was a high-volume case worker at  FLemington Kensington Community Legal Centre for 14 years and was active part of the centre’s police shootings campaign in the early 1990’s and during the early beginnings of what was to become the Police Accountability Project.

Since leaving the centre was Gregor has taken on numerous roles including principal lawyer positions at Justice Connect, the Consumer Action Law Centre and Brimbank Melton CLC and was most recently at Victoria Legal Aid where he established a new client service improving access to justice for people in prison.

Gregor brings a wealth of experience in client-centred casework, strategic and collaborative advocacy and law reform and a lifelong commitment to social justice.

Gregor returned to the legal centre as Principal Solicitor of the Police Accountability Project in January 2019.

Taina is passionate about International Law with a focus on Human Rights and Criminal Law. As a dual French/American citizen, she completed her Law Degree and Master’s Degree with honours at the University Paris X (France) before obtaining an LLM at the University of Melbourne. After a brief passage at the UNODC tackling issues of white collar crime and corruption of domestic or foreign public officials, Taina has started her career as an Australian Lawyer specialised in criminal law for various private law firms. Today, Taina is advocating for systemic changes into policing practices through the Police Accountability Project. As a woman in crime, practising in a foreign country, she thrives with ensuring that her clients’ rights are protected at all time, and that each individual is treated with respect and professionalism.