Deepen your understanding of the recent changes to family law affecting parenting matters and laws about family violence, apprehended violence and coercive control. Obtain useful tips to demystify Family Court processes, rules, court orders and agreements. Don’t be left unaware of the family law processes and legal concerns of your clients.

Presenters

Melanie Stern, Family Lawyer
Melanie Stern is a family law specialist accredited by the Law Society of New South Wales. Melanie has worked in top family law firms and has also worked as a legal associate to Judges of the Family Court of Australia where she gained invaluable experience. In 2018, Melanie was recognised in the Doyle’s Guide as a “Rising Star” in family law. Melanie provides expert advice and representation in a broad range of legal matters, including family law (divorce, parenting matters, property, complex financial issues, child support, spouse maintenance and de facto relationships) and estate matters (including family provision, wills and probate). Between 2016 and 2019, Melanie provided advice on a volunteer basis for the NSW Women's Legal Service. She holds BLArch(Hons); DipPM; LLB; Master of Applied Law (Family Law) and is a member of the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia and the Eastern Suburbs Law Society. She is admitted to practise in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia.


Ena Shaw, Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner, Nationally Accredited Mediator, Registered Psychologist
Ena has a strong passion for mediation since starting in the mediation field over 30 years ago, having worked as a clinical practitioner, academic, researcher and trainer in a wide range of fields of mediation, combining psychological principles with conflict resolution. Because of this, Ena has always worked towards increasing the general awareness of and respect for the profession. In the last three years, as Vice-President of VADR, Ena has had the opportunity to work with and support mediators in all areas of mediation, to understand their concerns and promote mediation to the wider community. Ena was the Chair of the 4th National Mediation Conference in Melbourne, 1998, and Chair of the Board for the 12th National Mediation Conference, Melbourne 2014. In addition, as the Family Dispute Resolution Training Manager at Relationships Australia Victoria, she conducted an extensive range of programs in the mediation field, developing one of the first training programs in Victoria, also assisting Relationships Australia to become a Registered Training Organisation, thus developing the training Programme for the Vocational Diploma of Dispute Resolution. In her private practice, I have extensive experience in the settlement of disputes involving interpersonal relationships such as family law, elder mediation, parent-adolescent, workplace, neighbourhood and gender-based harassment disputes and have conducted extensive training programs for federal, state and local government in all these areas. Ena has lectured at RMIT in Dispute resolution. Ena was awarded Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner of the Year, 2024

Psychologists and the Law in 2024

Designed specifically with psychologists in mind, this lunchtime webinar series will help you steer a safe course through the legal issues that can affect the success of your practice. Receive a step-by-step guide to setting up your practice, obtain a comprehensive guide to recent changes to employment law that affect you, learn from our experts about client complaints and professional regulation, learn about safety at work, rights and obligations, and hear about changes to the laws around family violence, apprehended violence and the new rules relating to coercive control that impact on your professional practice.