As a lawyer, advocate, consultant and academic, I have worked and researched extensively in anti-discrimination law, human rights law, access to justice, law reform, legal education, Aboriginal land rights, and organisational strategy.
About
Simon Rice
For a long time
Now
I am an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Sydney Law School. I continue to research and write on anti-discrimination law, human rights law and access to justice. As well, I am a lawyer at the law firm Chalk & Behrendt, where I practice in Aboriginal land rights and anti-discrimination law.
I’m currently a board member of the Justice and Equity Centre, and the NSW Council of Social Service.
Before Now
Until 2024 I was the Kim Santow Chair of Law and Social Justice at the University of Sydney Law School. Before that I was a Professor of Law and Director of Law Reform and Social Justice at the Australian National University (ANU) College of Law. While at the ANU I was executive Chair of the Australian Capital Territory Law Reform Advisory Council and the external legal adviser to the federal Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. Before ANU I was on the law faculty at Macquarie University.
In the 1980s, after a period in private commercial practice, I worked at Redfern Legal Centre in Sydney and co-founded Macarthur Legal Centre. In the 1990s I was Director of Kingsford Legal Centre and of clinical legal education programs at the University of NSW, and then Director of the NSW Law and Justice Foundation.
I’ve been a board member of Macarthur Legal Centre, Redfern Legal Centre, Redfern Legal Centre Publishing, the Communications Law Centre, the Disability Discrimination Legal Centre, the Intellectual Disability Rights Centre, and Canberra Community Law. I’ve also been President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, a Board member of NSW Legal Aid, a consultant to the NSW Law Reform Commission, a Hearing Commissioner for the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commission, a member of the Code of Conduct Committee of the Australian Council for International Development and for 15 years a judicial member of what is now the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, deciding discrimination complaints and merits review applications.
As well as my work in poverty law, particularly anti-discrimination law, I have trained and advised businesses, agencies and NGOs on human rights, and on organisational management and strategic planning. I’ve consulted on and conducted training courses in human rights, legal aid and legal education in Indonesia, Vietnam and China.
In 2002 I was awarded a Medal in the Order of Australia for legal services to the economically and socially disadvantaged, and in 2006 I received the UNSW Alumni Community Award.