Leanne Bowie

Leanne is a specialist practitioner in project approvals, environment and resumption issues for major projects and also in the area of related legislative and policy reform. From February 1989 until July 2010, Leanne was at Minter Ellison (or its predecessor, Morris Fletcher & Cross) and in 1999 was appointed head of the Brisbane Environment & Project Approvals practice. In August 2010, she established boutique law firm, Leanne Bowie Lawyers.

She is the immediate past chair of the Planning & Environment Committee of the Queensland Law Society and she has represented the Society in negotiations and submissions with the State Government on planning and environmental law reform for over a decade. She acts as both legal advisor and service member of the Queensland Resources Council, for example, she acted for the QRC in the Commission of Inquiry relating to Queensland’s 2010-11 floods. Her experience on behalf of these (and other) peak industry groups, combined with her long history of advising the Queensland Government on legislative and policy changes, is particularly relevant to her recognition at the ‘cutting edge’. In addition, she has lectured the environmental law component of the mining and petroleum law subject for the University of Queensland in 2007 and 2009, and she was previously Queensland editor of the National Environmental Law Review for 6 years.