Who We Are
Our Organisation
The Commissioners
The current members of the Commission are:
Michael Peedom (to 13 December 2014)
Michael Peedom was appointed as President of the Commission on 14 December 2009. He is a law graduate of the Australian National University and is admitted to practise as a barrister and solicitor. He has held the positions of Director of Legal Services of the ACT Office of the Australian Government Solicitor and inaugural Chief Solicitor of the ACT Government Solicitor. He has acted as the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions and served as a member of the Barristers and Solicitors Admission Board. He has been on a number of committees of the Law Society and the executive committees of the Australian Institute of Administrative Law and the Council of Australasian Tribunals. He was the President of the ACT Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Deputy President of a number of other ACT tribunals including the Discrimination Tribunal and an Acting Chair of the Sentence Administration Board before he retired in 2009.
Gregory Walker (to 9 March 2012)
Greg Walker was appointed to the Commission on 10 March 2009. He is a solicitor in private practice in Canberra. He is a former President of the ACT Law Society and is chair of its Access to Justice Committee, Law Reform Committee and Human Rights Committee. He worked as a solicitor at the Legal Aid Commission (ACT) from 1977 to 1982, and from 1982 to 1985 was Assistant Director. Mr Walker has previously served on the legal aid review committee and the legal aid external audit committee.
Meredith Whitten (to 9 April 2013)
Meredith Whitten was appointed to the Commission on 9 April 2010. She is an executive in the ACT Community Services Directorate. She has primarily worked in policy development, policy coordination and corporate management roles in the DHCS, the ACT Chief Minister's Department, and ACT Health.
Gail Kinsella (to 10 May 2013)
Gail Kinsella was appointed to the Commission on 10 May 2010. She is a chartered accountant and principal of the chartered accounting firm Kinsella Partners in Kingston. She is a member of a number of accounting profession advisory boards and committees at the local and previously the national level. Her community activities include membership of the board of Galilee, an organisation that cares for babies, children and teenagers at risk.
Deborah Pippen (to 20 August 2013)
Deb Pippen was appointed to the Commission on 20 August 2010. She is the Executive Officer of the Tenants' Union ACT. For the past 15 years she has been working with the Tenants' Union focussing on tenancy and housing rights, work involving direct contact with tenants through the Union's advice service. She was also involved in establishing ACT Shelter, the ACT peak housing body. She is committed to human rights and social justice; is involved in the community legal centre network in the ACT and nationally, and holds executive positions on the boards of the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre and the Youth Law Centre. She represents the ACT Community Legal Centre network on the Board of the National Association of Community Legal Centres. Nationally, Deborah holds representative positions with the National Association of Tenants Organisations, which provides networking and support for tenant advocates across the country as well as National Shelter, the peak consumer body for housing for people on low incomes. She is also connected with the International Union of Tenants.
Kathy Leigh (to 17 April 2014)
Kathy Leigh was appointed to the Commission on 18 April 2011. She is the Director-General of the ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate, where her responsibilities include emergency services, the law courts and tribunals, corrective services and human rights and criminal law policy. For a number of years she served with the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department overseeing policy development and national programs to improve access to justice. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Griffith University), Bachelor of Laws (with Honours, from Australian National University), and a Master of International Law (Australian National University) and is admitted as a barrister and solicitor before the ACT Supreme Court and the Federal Court.
Fergus Thomson (to 17 July 2014)
Fergus Thomson was appointed to the Commission on 18 July 2011. He is a barrister practising at the ACT Bar.
Andrew Crockett (to 30 November 2013)
Andrew Crockett was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the Commission on 1 December 2006. Prior to his appointment he was a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Monash University where he taught legal skills and professional ethics. Earlier he worked in legal aid, first in the Australian Legal Aid Office and later in the Legal Aid Commission of Victoria. He was Director of Legal Aid in Victoria from 1989 until 1995. His other appointments have included the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and Family Law Council, and he was a volunteer lawyer and board member at Springvale Legal Service for many years.