Public law

We are enthusiastic and passionate public lawyers whose interest in public law has brought us together to provide more effective services for clients. Interwoven allows us to provide our clients with our combined expertise in IT, procurement, contracting, governance and public law, and to serve the interests of our clients in ways that wouldn’t possible if we always acted alone.

We have all had lengthy careers as public lawyers in various positions within government and now use that experience and expertise to help clients with public law issues. Our collaborative arrangement involving senior public lawyers makes our public law service a formidable offering for our clients.

For any public sector policy or project to be successful and enduring the organisation responsible for that policy or project must understand the legal requirements for the exercise of its public law powers and decision-making responsibilities:

  • we specialise in helping public sector organisations identify and comply with their public law legal requirements;
  • we provide our clients with trusted solutions that are easy to understand and use;
  • we help our clients to successfully implement their policies and objectives.

The legal requirements for exercising powers and making decisions can be many and various and we pride ourselves on ensuring our clients can exercise the powers they need to exercise and make the decisions they need to make while avoiding or minimising the risks of a successful legal challenge.

We also provide a range of other public law services to our clients, including:

  • drafting Bills, regulations and rules, and undertaking inquiries and reviews of particular issues or areas of law;
  • preparing submissions for Parliamentary select committees and advising organisations on their presentations to committees, and representing organisations before Commissions of Inquiry and Royal Commissions;
  • advising on the legal implications of policy proposals, providing regulatory policy advice, and assisting with the design, drafting, implementation and operation of regulatory regimes;
  • advising on governance policies and the legal and procedural requirements for decision-making by boards; and
  • advising on the application of the machinery of government statutes such as the State Sector Act 1988, the Public Finance Act 1989, the Public Audit Act 2001, the Public Records Act 2005, the Ombudsmen Act 1975, the Privacy Act 1993, the Official Information Act 1982, and OIA and Privacy Act requests and investigations, as well as responses to Ombudsmen and Auditor-General investigations.

We fully understand the legal boundaries of client’s responsibilities as public sector organisations as we often undertake judicial review proceedings for clients, advise clients on responses to court decisions and work with clients to minimise the risks of successful judicial review proceedings.