Biography of Professor Michael Dodson AM

Mick Dodson is a Yawuru man from the Broome area in Western Australia. He was the first Indigenous Australian to receive a law degree following studies at Monash University in Melbourne. A proud, courageous and humble Aboriginal leader, Dodson has served in a wide range of challenging roles and has been an enthusiastic advocate for social justice. He joined the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service in 1976 and became a barrister at the Victorian Bar in 1981. He was counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in the late 1980s and was appointed Australia’s first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner in 1993.

Professor Dodson was formerly the Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University and is currently the Northern Territory Treaty Commissioner.

Event background to The Annual Hon Barry O’Keefe AM QC DUniv (HonorisCausa) (ACU) Memorial Lecture

The Barry O'Keefe Memorial Lecture is an annual event hosted by the Thomas More Law School at Australian Catholic University, and is named in honour of the late Hon Barry O'Keefe AM QC DUniv (HonorisCausa) (ACU). The inaugural Barry O'Keefe Memorial Lecture was held at Australian Catholic University’s MacKillop Campus in North Sydney in 2015.

Justice O'Keefe's contributions include Chair of Interpol's International Group of Experts on Corruption and Chair of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council representing the Catholic Church's response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Justice O'Keefe was a Judge of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, Court of Common Law Division and Court of Criminal Appeal. ACU awarded Justice O'Keefe the University's highest honour, an honorary doctorate, two weeks before he passed away in 2014.