Best Lawyers in Australia for Defamation and Media Law
John-Paul Cashen is recognised as one of Australia’s most prominent media lawyers, with extensive experience in all aspects of media law. He is a specialist in defamation, contempt of court, suppression, privilege, breach of confidence, freedom of information, urgent injunctions and racial vilification claims. John-Paul is a lawyer who always puts his clients first. Understanding that in litigation most clients are going through challenging times, John-Paul ensures his clients know they...
Sophie is a media lawyer and litigator with extensive expertise in media and defamation matters. She specialises in defamation, contempt of court, suppression orders, freedom of information and court access applications, confidential information claims, privacy law, pre-publication advice, copyright and cyber safety law. She has acted for and advised many of Australia’s largest media organisations, large corporations and politicians, authors, and high profile/high net worth individuals ...
Justin Quill is one of Australia’s most experienced media law practitioners, practising exclusively in the area for 24 years. Justin is highly sought after by high profile media entities for urgent advice on significant matters. He is also extremely well regarded as a litigator and a strategic thinker. Justin is a regular columnist for Australia’s largest newspaper, the Herald Sun and is called on for appearance work as an expert commentator. Justin specialises in defamation, cont...
Ian is a corporate, commercial, media and regulatory lawyer who advises a wide range of Australian and overseas clients with particular emphasis on the media, advertising, automotive and renewable energy industries, as well as government departments and agencies. His recent experience includes: public policy, public sector governance, and regulatory issues including as the Chair and Deputy Chair of State and Commonwealth statutory agencies advising global car manufacturers on Australian regul...
Ben Coogan practises in all areas of intellectual property law including agreements and disputes, information technology, privacy, confidential information, competition and consumer law, and litigation. In addition to his intellectual property law experience, Ben is also an experienced practitioner in the area of defamation and media law. Ben has considerable specialist litigation and prosecution experience in patent, copyright, trade mark, designs, and confidential information matters. Ben&r...
Marlia is an experienced media/entertainment, intellectual property and privacy lawyer who has extensive top-tier law firm expertise and a unique client perspective after working as a senior in-house lawyer for many years. She was the Senior Litigation Counsel at News Corp Australia for four years, and previously worked at a top-tier international firm for 13 years where she acted for and advised most of Australia’s major media organisations, social media and streaming platforms, large ...
Tony is a senior lawyer with more than 35 years' experience in complex agreements and disputes, particularly across intellectual property (IP), information technology (IT), life sciences, and franchising. Tony also has broad international experience, particularly in the USA, UK, and Asia. Tony has been involved in many seminal deals and cases. His experience includes cases involving expert evidence and cross jurisdiction co-ordination with an emphasis on technical and parallel issues. Tony ha...
Hamish McNair is a top attorney recognized by Best Lawyers in the practice area(s) of Defamation and Media Law and Litigation. Hamish, who practices law in Melbourne, Australia, has been recognized since 2026. This recognition is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey, reflecting the high esteem in which Hamish is held by other top lawyers in the same geographic and legal practice area.
After 12 years at the Bar, combining advocacy and mediation work, Deborah commenced full time practice as a mediator in 2016. Deborah has been conducting mediations since 2000, initially as a court appointed mediator/Registrar of the Supreme Court and from 2004 in private practice. Deborah is an accredited mediator under the Australian National Mediator Standards and is appointed to both the Supreme and District Court mediation panels. She was a member of the ADR Committee of the Bar Associat...
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.