Directors

Sari’s charity law practice is grounded in senior executive legal and board governance roles. Most recently Sari was General Counsel and Company Secretary at Oxfam Australia, a charity that tackles global poverty. Sari’s early career was in the commercial field, as a lawyer with Herbert Smith Freehills in Melbourne and later, Jakarta. She has held the positions of General Counsel and Company Secretary in an ASX listed company, and in legal and compliance in higher education, prior to moving to an in-house role in the charitable sector in 2010.

Sari’s involvement in charity governance includes her past board roles at the Art Gallery of Ballarat and Sovereign Hill Museums, and her local Community Legal Centre’s Committee of Management. She holds a BA/LLM and an LLM from the University of Melbourne and is a graduate of the AICD Company Directors course (GAICD).  Sari is a member of the Law Institute’s Charity and NFP Committee and previously served on the ACNC’s Professional Advisor and Sector Forums from their inception. 

Sue Barker is the director of Sue Barker Charities Law, a boutique law firm based in Wellington, specialising in charities law and public tax law. Since its founding in 2012, the firm has won a number of awards, including Boutique Law Firm of the Year at the New Zealand Law Awards. Sue is a member of the Charities Services' Sector Group and a member of the Core Reference Group for the review of the Charities Act. Sue is also a co-author of the text, The Law and Practice of Charities in New Zealand (LexisNexis, 2013), and a contributor to a number of texts, including Regulating Charities: the Inside Story (Routledge, 2017) and Corporate Governance – a Practical Handbook (2ed) (Wolters Kluwer, 2016).

In 2016, Sue was made an Honorary National Life Member of the National Council of Women of New Zealand Incorporated for her work assisting the Council with charities law issues. Sue is currently on sabbatical as the 2019 New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fellowship, undertaking research into the question “What does a world-leading framework of charities law look like?”, with a report due by 2021.

Jennifer practises in taxation, equity, superannuation, commercial and administrative law. With 27 years’ experience at the Bar, she is a trusted advisor to a range of corporate, government and not-for-profit clients. In addition to general income tax and R&D matters, she has experience in advising in relation to GST, FBT, payroll and land taxes. She also has a substantial equity practice in the not-for-profit sector and has assisted numerous not-for-profit entities to obtain or retain their tax concession charity status. Jennifer has acted as an expert determiner and is a consultant to the ATO Public Advice and Guidance Panel. Jennifer appears before the High Court, the Federal Court and the superior State courts, mainly in revenue matters.

Jennifer has been a silk for over 17 years and is a past President of the Victorian Bar and of the Tax Bar Association. She is presently President of the Australian Bar Association and Chair of the Law Council Charities and Not-for-Profits committee. She is also a member of the Melbourne Law School Advisory Council and Melbourne Tax Masters Advisory Committee. Jennifer is also a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Law School, teaching in the Tax Masters Program.

Marla Cowen is a charity law specialist at Herbert Smith Freehills. After working in tax at Allens Linklaters, Marla began her charity law career at the ACNC, where she worked as Legal Counsel during the first 4 years of the ACNC’s establishment. Marla gained further regulatory and tax experience as a director at the ATO, and later undertook a secondment as manager of the NFP Advice team at Justice Connect.

At HSF, Marla advises on a broad range of matters affecting charities, including charity establishment, ACNC requirements, ACNC reviews, tax endorsements, constitutions and governance, and has a particular interest in charity law issues regarding the charity/government distinction and professional associations.

Seak-King Huang established Milner + Huang, lawyers to the for-purpose sector, with Alex Milner in mid-2021. Previously she was a Partner of Prolegis Lawyers and before that, she was General Counsel and Company Secretary of World Vision Australia and a Partner at Clayton Utz.

Seak-King is also the Chair of the Charities and Not-for-profits Committee of the Legal Practice section of the Law Council of Australia. She is also a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a board member of two Australian registered charities. Additionally, she is a member of the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne and of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia.

As Head of Legal at Paul Ramsay Foundation since 2023, Jo works across the Foundation’s portfolio of impact investments and grants. 

Before joining the Foundation, she worked as Principal Legal Officer at the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. She was previously a lawyer at Blake Dawson (now Ashurst). 

Jo holds a master’s degree from the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at the University of New South Wales. She has written about law and justice for publications including The Economist and The Monthly.

Kris is Board Chair of Parry Field Lawyers Limited, a New Zealand law firm with offices in Canterbury and on the West Coast, which provides services nationally to charities and non-profit organisations as well as to other corporate and private clients. 

Kris joined Parry Field in 2002 and practices in the area of corporate and commercial law, including for many charitable clients - assisting them with a range of issues including charitable ownership and operation of business, property matters, drafting of constitutions, trust deeds and operational rules, incorporation, charitable registration and applications for inclusion in schedule 32 of the Income Tax Act 2007. He also represents a number of schools and has particular expertise in the framework that governs state integrated schools in New Zealand. Kris’s previous governance experience includes as a trustee of New Zealand charity, Digital Future Aotearoa. 

Kris holds a Bachelor of Laws with Honours and a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University of Wellington.

Dr Ian Murray is an academic at the University of Western Australia Law School where he teaches and researches in Taxation and Not-for-profit Law, with a focus on the intersection between Not-for-profit Law, Tax and Corporate Governance. He has a number of years’ experience as a practitioner and practical experience in the regulatory and governance issues faced by not-for-profits, having been a not-for-profit board member for over 5 years and having worked as an in-house lawyer at the University of Western Australia.

Ian has published widely on charity tax concessions, charity regulation, native title charities, accumulation of assets by charities, tax administration and resource taxation from the perspectives of tax policy, equity, trusts, property law, corporations law and regulatory theory. He is a co-author of one of Australia's leading taxation law texts, Understanding Taxation Law.

Dr Natalie Silver is an academic at the University of Sydney Law School, where she teaches contract law. Her research focuses on not-for-profit law and regulation, and she has published widely on the tax aspects of charitable giving, the regulation of cross-border philanthropy, and the intersection between contract law and charity law.

Natalie worked for a number of years as a lawyer in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and is a member of the New York Bar. She also has extensive philanthropic advisory and grantmaking experience through her work in the Philanthropic Services group at JP Morgan Private Bank in New York, Jewish Funders Network, and The Atlantic Philanthropies.