26 Vital Thought Leaders in Law Firm Leadership in Queensland (2026)

Last updated: June 2026

The people genuinely shaping how Queensland law firms are led, managed, and built are not always the names that appear in national rankings. As of June 2026, Queensland is home to a distinctive legal leadership conversation shaped by managing partners of independent firms navigating succession and strategy, peak body leaders setting the profession's agenda, innovators redesigning what a law practice can look like, and educators equipping the next generation of lawyers with the leadership skills they never received in law school. The thought leaders on this list have contributed to that conversation through published work, professional advocacy, firm-building, educational leadership, and active engagement with the Queensland legal community.

They represent the people every lawyer, managing partner, and legal operations professional in this state should be following in 2026. Rather than recycling the same handful of names that appear on every national list, this directory focuses on voices who are genuinely shaping the Queensland conversation, people who deserve to be far better known by anyone serious about law firm leadership in this state.

If your law firm's leadership team needs external support on communication, team alignment, accountability, or culture, book Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, to deliver a Working Genius facilitation session, DISC workshop, or executive offsite for your partners. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why Law Firm Leadership in Queensland Matters

Law firm leadership matters everywhere, but it presents particular challenges in Queensland. The state's legal market is home to a mix of independently owned Queensland firms, national practices with major Brisbane offices, boutique specialists operating from the Sunshine Coast to Cairns, and an increasingly active ecosystem of online and alternative legal service providers. Managing partners must hold equity partners accountable, retain talent in a competitive labour market, navigate AML/CTF regulatory changes taking effect in 2026, respond to the rapid adoption of AI in legal practice, and lead through generational succession, all while maintaining the client relationships on which most Queensland firms depend.

A 2025 survey by Patrick McKenna and Michael Rynowecer of more than 200 law firm leaders found that developing market-leading practice groups and identifying future leaders were the top two leadership priorities heading into 2026. Those findings reflect a profession that knows leadership capability is the single most important lever for firm performance, and that too few firms invest in it deliberately.

The University of Queensland Law Journal published a significant 2025 article titled "Leadership in the Modern Law Firm," observing that Australian law firms are at an inflection point where disruptive forces including technology, sustainability, and new competitors are rapidly changing the practice of law. Internally, firms face concerns about retention, wellbeing, and intergenerational demographics. The scarcity of literature and resources tailored specifically to leadership in law firms in the Australian context was identified as a genuine challenge for practitioners seeking direction.

Queensland's legal profession is also larger than many outside the law recognise. The Queensland Law Society represents more than 13,000 legal professionals across the state. The 2026 QLS Symposium attracted close to 1,000 legal practitioners in a single day. The conversations happening in this community about how to lead, how to build sustainable firms, and how to develop lawyers into leaders deserve a wider audience.

Organisations whose leadership teams want to build the communication skills, accountability frameworks, and team culture that sustain high-performing law firms can hire Jonno White to facilitate a Working Genius session or executive offsite. Jonno works with professional services firms across Australia and internationally. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected on the basis of three criteria: a documented and substantive contribution to law firm leadership specifically within Queensland; active engagement with the profession through writing, advocacy, firm-building, educational leadership, or public speaking in 2025 or 2026; and an ability to influence how lawyers in this state think about how their firms are led. The list focuses on Queensland-based voices and is organised into five categories reflecting the different dimensions through which leadership in this sector is shaped. The honest count of 26 reflects the geographic specificity of this brief: Queensland is a large and distinctive legal market, but it is not a jurisdiction where 50 verified, actively contributing thought leaders in law firm leadership specifically can be identified without padding.

Category 1: Peak Body and Profession Leadership

The Queensland Law Society's elected and appointed leadership shapes the agenda for more than 13,000 legal professionals. The people in this category are setting priorities, navigating regulatory reform, and making the case for what good law and good leadership look like across the state. The QLS President, CEO, and council members visible here are doing more than administrative work: they are public advocates for the profession, active commentators on AI, access to justice, and regulatory change, and models of practitioner leadership operating under genuine public scrutiny.

1. Peter Jolly

A fourth-generation solicitor and Partner in Thynne + Macartney's Business Advisory and Dispute Resolution Group, Peter Jolly was elected as the 2026 Queensland Law Society President having served as a Councillor since 2022 and as QLS Vice President. He chairs the QLS Specialist Accreditation Board and holds specialist accreditation in Business Law. His theme for 2026 is leading the profession, a call he has explicitly extended beyond those in formal leadership positions to every Queensland practitioner.

At the 2026 QLS President's Dinner, Jolly outlined his priorities for the year including advocacy for higher Legal Aid remuneration and guiding the profession through AML/CTF regulatory changes effective 1 July 2026. His background as a Thynne + Macartney partner, a firm with deep Queensland roots across commercial law, gives him a distinctive grounding in the practical realities of managing and building a mid-tier Queensland practice alongside his representative role. His active speaking at QLS events throughout early 2026 reflects a president who is genuinely visible to the profession he leads.

2. Matt Dunn

Matt Dunn became CEO of the Queensland Law Society in March 2024, succeeding Rolf Moses after a career at QLS that began in 2005 as Policy and Research Officer and progressed through Principal Policy Officer and a period as Director of Policy at the Law Council of Australia. As General Manager of Advocacy, Guidance and Governance before the CEO role, he built the policy and committee functions that now underpin QLS's member services.

As CEO, Dunn drove a statewide AML/CTF roadshow in early 2026 that visited 10 Queensland cities, reaching over 1,000 practitioners in-person and online, preparing the profession for compliance obligations taking effect 1 July 2026. His active LinkedIn presence, public commentary on AI in legal practice, and his member engagement survey programme signal an operational leadership philosophy centred on transparency and member responsiveness. He is one of the most consistently visible legal leaders in Queensland in 2026.

3. Genevieve Dee

Genevieve Dee served as the 2025 QLS President and is the Immediate Past President continuing on the QLS Executive Committee into 2026. A Partner at Lander & Rogers and Accredited Family Law Specialist who has practised exclusively in family and relationship law for 20 years, she balanced active client work and specialist accreditation mentoring while leading the Society. She has been recognised in Best Lawyers in Australia for family law and family mediation.

During her presidency, Dee championed the profession's development through the QLS Symposium and specialist accreditation programmes. Her public LinkedIn commentary on accreditation graduates, governance milestones, and her final address in the Banco Court provides a transparent account of what practitioner-led professional body leadership looks like from the inside. Her expression of gratitude for the "honour of my career" in describing the presidency reflects a voice that is as invested in the profession's culture as its structures.

4. Elizabeth Shearer

Elizabeth Shearer is the Director of Shearer Doyle Law, a Brisbane-based general practice firm, and was elected as President-Elect of the Law Council of Australia for 2026, placing her in line to assume the LCA presidency in 2027. She served as QLS President in 2021 and received the Agnes McWhinney Award for her contributions to the profession. She is also the founder of Affording Justice, an innovative unbundled legal services model designed to help the group she calls "the missing middle," people not eligible for legal aid and unlikely to engage a full-service solicitor.

Her national ascent is connected directly to a career path she describes as non-traditional: spanning small firm practice, legal aid, community legal centres, policy, and management. Her public statement on election to the LCA president-elect role, that she was "delighted to shine a light on the fact that there are lots of ways to be a lawyer," is a form of leadership visibility that influences how Queensland practitioners understand their own career possibilities. She chairs the QLS Access to Justice and Pro Bono Committee.

5. Sarah-Jane MacDonald

Sarah-Jane MacDonald is the 2026 QLS Deputy President and a family lawyer based on the Darling Downs. Her election to QLS leadership positions reflects a deliberate commitment to ensuring that regional Queensland practitioners have a genuine voice in profession governance alongside their metropolitan counterparts. She contributes to the QLS Domestic and Family Violence Policy Committee and the Practice Management Committee.

Her regional practice background gives her a distinctive vantage point on the challenges facing Queensland lawyers outside Brisbane: from access to justice gaps in regional communities to the practical realities of managing a family law practice in a setting where the lawyer often knows both parties personally. Her presence at the QLS executive level in 2026 is a structural acknowledgement that profession leadership must represent the full geography of Queensland law.

6. Craig Chapman

Craig Chapman is the 2026 QLS Vice President and a Partner at Dentons, where he heads the Brisbane office and works in banking and finance. Appointed to QLS Council in 2024, he has been actively involved in the Early Career Skills Working Group and participated in Bond University's research into the job readiness of law graduates.

His combination of global firm experience at one of the world's largest law firm networks, banking and finance expertise, and active investment in the development of emerging Queensland lawyers makes him a voice at the intersection of large firm practice management and profession-wide talent development. As Dentons' Brisbane office head, he navigates the distinctive challenge of representing a global platform within a local profession community that values independent Queensland identity.

Category 2: Large and Independent Firm Leadership

Queensland's mid-tier and independent firms face a leadership challenge that is distinct from the national firm experience. How do you build a genuinely distinctive culture and strategic direction without the resources of a national firm or the flexibility of a boutique? The leaders in this category are working through that question at scale, and doing so in public. Their firm anniversaries, centenary commitments, and structural innovations are themselves contributions to how Queensland legal leadership is understood.

7. Kristan Conlon

Kristan Conlon is Chair of Partners at McCullough Robertson, the Brisbane-headquartered independent firm celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026. She joined the firm as a graduate in 1998, became a partner in 2007, and was appointed Chair in 2022, succeeding Reece Walker. She has held several executive leadership team positions since 2013 and has spearheaded innovation and diversity and inclusion initiatives across the firm.

Recognised in Chambers Asia-Pacific, Legal 500, Doyle's Guide, and Best Lawyers Australia for real estate and property law, Conlon is known for leading multi-disciplinary teams and building high-performance cultures within a large independent firm. Her public statement at the firm's centenary, announcing a commitment of $1 million in pro bono legal services to Queensland's housing sector, signals the strategic direction she is charting for the next chapter of McCullough Robertson as a community-anchored institution, not only a commercial enterprise.

8. Damien Clarke

Damien Clarke is a Joint Managing Partner of McCullough Robertson, where he has built a national reputation as a resources and energy transactions lawyer while co-leading the firm's strategic direction through its centenary year. His transactional portfolio includes some of the most significant energy and mining deals executed by a Queensland-based independent firm, including advising on the $1.82 billion acquisition of BHP's Queensland mines by Stanmore Coal.

Clarke's public commentary at the firm's 100-year milestone focused on collaboration, client success, and innovation as the drivers of the next century. His willingness to articulate a forward-looking vision for a firm with a century of history reflects a form of managing partner leadership that is rare in Queensland: explicitly connecting heritage to ambition in a way that gives partners and staff a narrative to work within, not merely a strategy document to reference.

9. Guy Humble

Guy Humble is the second Joint Managing Partner of McCullough Robertson, sharing the firm's strategic and operational leadership with Damien Clarke. His commentary on real estate practice and community housing strategy positions the firm's commercial real estate capability alongside its centenary pro bono commitment to the housing sector.

The shared managing partner model that Humble and Clarke operate is itself a form of governance leadership for Queensland firms: a structure designed to distribute strategic responsibility rather than concentrate it in a single leader. The model has sustained McCullough Robertson through significant growth and the centenary milestone preparation without visible dysfunction, which is itself evidence of a leadership culture that many firms aspire to but few maintain at that scale.

10. Travis Schultz OAM

Travis Schultz OAM is the Founder and Managing Partner of Travis Schultz & Partners, a compensation law firm he established in 2018 with two lawyers and three support staff, growing it to 22 lawyers across Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns, and Innisfail by 2026. He was recognised in the Governor-General's Australia Day 2026 Honours List with the Medal of the Order of Australia for his contributions to the legal profession and community.

He is the only Queensland lawyer ranked in the national Doyle's Guide listings and the only Australian lawyer recognised as Preeminent in all three core areas of compensation law. His public writing on WorkCover Queensland data and mental injury policy, published in the Australian Lawyers Alliance Precedent journal, reflects a firm leader who uses subject-matter visibility as a strategic asset for the firm rather than a personal credential. The TSP model of capped fees, no-win-no-fee arrangements, and direct lawyer access is itself a leadership statement about what a values-driven Queensland compensation law firm can look like.

11. Jim Conomos

Jim Conomos is the Managing Director and Founder of JCL Law Partners in Brisbane, a boutique commercial litigation and insolvency firm he established in July 1992 as James Conomos Lawyers and rebranded in June 2024 to reflect a new director structure alongside Adrian Robins. He has served as a QLS Councillor since April 2023 and holds Preeminent Lawyer recognition in the 2025 Doyle's Guide for insolvency and reconstruction alongside leading lawyer recognition in commercial litigation.

His published writing on AI in disputes, contributed to IR Global's publication The Visionaries, argues that AI is the tool, not the answer, in dispute resolution. This practitioner-grounded engagement with technology reflects a boutique firm leader who is actively building a public position on how AI reshapes commercial litigation rather than waiting for the large firms to define that conversation. His dual role as firm founder and profession body councillor connects day-to-day practice management to broader Queensland legal advocacy.

12. Tim Longwill

Tim Longwill is Pro Bono Partner at McCullough Robertson, where he co-leads the firm's Community Partnerships Program alongside Kim Trajer, the firm's Chief Operating Officer. The CPP focuses on priority areas including sustainability, access to justice, community arts, health and mental health, and diversity and inclusion. McCullough Robertson's pro bono team was recognised in the Organisation category at the 2025 QLS Excellence in Law Awards.

Longwill's leadership of the pro bono function at a large independent firm represents a form of law firm leadership increasingly important in how Queensland firms differentiate themselves to clients, recruits, and the community. His work connects the firm's commercial legal excellence to community contribution in a way that is strategic rather than incidental, and his visibility within the profession reflects a broader shift in how large Queensland firms think about the relationship between commercial success and social responsibility.

Category 3: Innovation and Business Model Disruption

The most interesting law firm leadership in Queensland in 2026 is happening outside the traditional firm model. The people in this category are building practices that operate entirely differently from how law has historically been delivered, and they are doing so in public. Their thought leadership is inseparable from their firm-building: the choices they are making about pricing, technology, business model, and client relationship are themselves contributions to how the profession thinks about what it means to lead a law firm. They are the clearest demonstration that Queensland's legal leadership conversation extends well beyond the managing partners of large and mid-tier practices.

13. Rizwana McDonald

Rizwana McDonald is the Founder and Director of Foundd Legal, a Brisbane-based online legal practice serving creative agencies and entrepreneurs through a model combining self-service legal templates, a membership programme, and custom legal services. She has been a lawyer for more than 20 years and has also built and run e-commerce businesses alongside her legal practice.

Featured in Proctor magazine's Game Changers series in 2023 as an innovator in Queensland legal practice, McDonald spoke at the April 2026 QLS Sole and Small Practice Breakfast Series, where she argued that the traditional way of running a practice is no longer sustainable. Her dual identity as lawyer and entrepreneur gives her a perspective on business model disruption that few Queensland practitioners can match. The Foundd Legal model is evidence that access and affordability can be commercial rather than philanthropic if the service design is right.

14. Clarissa Rayward

Clarissa Rayward is the Director of Brisbane Family Law Centre, which she founded in 2008 as a single-practitioner firm and grew into a multidisciplinary collaborative practice. She is also the founder of the Happy Lawyer Happy Life movement, a coaching and community platform for lawyers seeking purposeful and profitable practices, and the author of Splitsville: How to Separate, Stay Out of Court and Stay Friends.

She received the Lawyers Weekly Thought Leader of the Year Award for her work opening a dialogue about better ways to support families experiencing divorce and separation. Her double identity as a firm director and a lawyer wellbeing advocate places her at the intersection of two consequential conversations in Queensland law: how to lead a boutique practice with genuine values, and how to keep lawyers healthy enough to keep leading. Her February 2026 Mastermind programme for 12 lawyers implementing law firm innovation reflects an ongoing commitment to building practitioner leadership capacity across Queensland.

15. Claire Styles

Claire Styles is the Founder and Principal Lawyer of C Legal & Co, a Brisbane firm she launched after years in general practice. She spoke at the April 2026 QLS Sole and Small Practice Breakfast Series alongside Rizwana McDonald and Anna Morgan, sharing her experience of building a niche practice and the professional identity challenges that accompany that transition.

Her public commentary on the resistance to specialisation, and her account of how she moved from wanting to be a general lawyer to deliberately building a focused practice, is a practically grounded contribution to how Queensland small firm owners think about strategic direction. Her willingness to speak openly about both the uncertainty and the rewards of that transition gives her voice a credibility that more polished business development messaging rarely achieves.

16. Anna Morgan

Anna Morgan is the Principal Solicitor at Take Control Legal and chaired the April 2026 QLS Sole and Small Practice Breakfast Series panel on innovation in Queensland law firm business models. Her role as chair of that session, convening and facilitating a conversation between fellow practitioners about the disruptions reshaping their industry, reflects an active engagement with the profession's public conversations that goes beyond her own practice.

The Take Control Legal model, oriented around client empowerment and practical access to legal services, represents an approach to the access-to-justice challenge that operates from within the private practice framework rather than the community legal centre sector. Her willingness to share her own business model experience in a public forum at the QLS makes her a voice that small and sole practitioner Queensland lawyers can connect with directly.

17. Tracey McMillan

Tracey McMillan is the CEO of Queensland Family Law Practice, a Brisbane-based specialist family law firm she leads that won the Lawyer International Legal 100 Awards 2026 as Best Family Law Practice Firm of the Year in Australia. She became a barrister in 2001 and moved to solicitor practice in 2008 to take a more hands-on role with clients navigating the most difficult transitions of their lives.

Her leadership of a specialist boutique that competes nationally on leadership, innovation, and client focus rather than scale is a model for how Queensland specialist family law firms can position themselves for recognition. The 2026 national award reflects a firm that has built its reputation on what McMillan describes as empathetic, strategic legal guidance, a combination that many practices aspire to but that requires disciplined leadership to sustain across an entire firm rather than a single practitioner.

18. Kelly Phelps

Kelly Phelps is the CEO and Director of Travis Schultz & Partners, promoted from Chief Operating Officer in 2022 in recognition of the firm's growth and maturity. She has been with TSP since its inception in 2018. The separation of the CEO role from the Managing Partner role at TSP is itself a structural leadership decision: a conscious investment in a management layer that supports expansion without requiring the founding Managing Partner to carry every operational function.

Phelps's leadership represents a model of boutique Queensland firm governance that is worth studying by any firm founder thinking about succession planning, scalable operations, and the distinction between legal expertise and organisational management. Her background in operations before assuming the CEO title gives her a credibility in the firm's operational culture that a purely external appointment would not carry.

Category 4: Legal Education and Leadership Development

The people in this category are not managing law firms. They are shaping how the next generation of Queensland lawyers is educated, developed, and supported. Their influence on law firm leadership is indirect but foundational. The shift from a great lawyer to a great leader is one of the most consequential transitions in any firm, and the educators and development specialists in this category are making that transition less hazardous for the thousands of Queensland lawyers navigating it each year. The organisations they lead deliver the infrastructure of legal leadership development in this state.

19. Ann-Maree David

Ann-Maree David is the Executive Director of The College of Law Queensland, which she established in 2003 and has built into the leading provider of professional legal education in Queensland. She is the Immediate Past President of Australian Women Lawyers and a Director of the Australian Gender Equality Council. She chairs the Queensland Law Society's Equity and Diversity Committee and the Legal Practice Management Summit Committee.

Her career-long passion for developing education programmes that help all involved in delivering legal services thrive personally and professionally has made her a consistent presence in the conversations that shape how Queensland's emerging lawyers are prepared for leadership. Her co-hosting of the 2024 ALPMA International Women's Day event at the QLS, bringing together lawyers, practice managers, and legal educators, reflects a commitment to leadership development that extends well beyond formal legal education into the practical management of Queensland practices.

20. Midja Fisher

Midja Fisher is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Legal Leadership Project and The FLEX, Gold Coast-based organisations offering specialised leadership training, coaching, and facilitation to lawyers, law firms, and legal professionals nationally. She is the author of three books on leadership, including Great Lawyer to Great Leader, and hosts the Mondays with Midja leadership podcast. Her background includes more than 25 years in the corporate world, including as a partner of an ASX-listed national law firm.

Her client list includes Ashurst, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Shine Lawyers, Legal Aid Queensland, Travis Schultz & Partners, and the Queensland Law Society among dozens of others. Her February 2026 LinkedIn post articulating the emotional experience of legal leadership at its most draining, and her argument that leadership should get better as lawyers rise rather than heavier, captures the psychological dimension of the practitioner-to-leader transition with a directness that her client firms clearly value.

21. Nadia Bromley

Nadia Bromley is the Chief Executive Officer of Women's Legal Service Queensland, providing free legal assistance to women navigating domestic violence, family law, and sexual assault matters. She has served as CEO since 2022, bringing previous experience from QSuper where she held roles including Acting General Counsel and Associate General Counsel. Her LLB is from Queensland University of Technology.

She received the QLS Access to Justice Award in 2025 alongside Amber Buckland, recognising her leadership of an organisation that operates at the most acute intersection of legal excellence and community need. Her public advocacy at the 2026 Brisbane Domestic and Family Violence Forum, and her participation as a speaker at fundraising events including the Dancing CEOs initiative, connects the operational leadership of a specialist legal organisation to broader systemic conversations about the resources available to vulnerable Queenslanders navigating the justice system.

22. Amber Buckland

Amber Buckland is Senior Executive Director, Client and Partner Services at Legal Aid Queensland. She received the QLS Access to Justice Award in 2025 alongside Nadia Bromley, recognising her leadership of client services at Queensland's primary provider of publicly funded legal assistance. The joint award was the first time in the programme's history that the Access to Justice Award had been shared.

Her acceptance speech, in which she acknowledged the joint nature of the award as an act of genuine profession-wide collaboration rather than individual competition, and her direct public advocacy for funding and remuneration improvements for practitioners doing legal assistance work, make her a voice that connects operational leadership within the public legal sector to the policy debates that determine what resources flow to it. Her work at Legal Aid Queensland influences the pipeline of talent and the professional development infrastructure for a significant proportion of Queensland's emerging lawyers.

Category 5: Access to Justice, Professional Standards, and Community Leadership

The final category reflects a dimension of Queensland law firm leadership that rarely appears in management literature but is central to what the profession means in this state. The people here have built or led practices at the intersection of legal excellence and community obligation, or have demonstrated leadership through contribution to the professional standards and recognition frameworks that hold the Queensland legal community together. Their leadership is often quieter than that of large firm managing partners, but its consequences are no less significant for the lawyers and clients whose work and lives it shapes.

23. Belinda Griffiths

Belinda Griffiths is the Founding Principal of Intrepidus Law, Australia's leading legal practice dedicated to NDIS law and disability rights. She won the QLS Solicitor of the Year Small Firm Award in 2025. With over 20 years of experience spanning top-tier firms, government, and human rights advocacy, she is recognised for her representation of people with disability in complex NDIS appeals. As a mother and carer of an autistic child, she brings lived experience to legal work that is rare in the profession.

Her appearance before the Senate Standing Committee regarding the NDIS Amendment Bill in 2024 extended her thought leadership beyond Queensland into national policy reform. Her 2025 QLS award reflects a profession that increasingly values the specialist, mission-driven practice as a form of leadership equal to that of large and mid-tier firms. Her decision to build a firm around a single, underserved area of law is itself a leadership contribution to how Queensland practitioners think about the relationship between specialisation and social impact.

24. Pippa Colman

Pippa Colman is the Director of Pippa Colman & Associates and recipient of the QLS Agnes McWhinney Award at the 2025 Excellence in Law Awards, recognising her as a female lawyer who has forged new pathways and demonstrated a commitment to equity, professionalism, and service to the Queensland community. She was admitted in 1979 and has been an Accredited Family Law Specialist for decades. Named after Queensland's first female solicitor, the award is one of the most significant recognitions in the state's legal profession.

Her emotionally direct acceptance speech, describing the loneliness of being admitted at a time when women were routinely mistaken for receptionists, was itself an act of leadership: a public account of the profession's history that connects directly to the present work of equity advocates in Queensland law. She is a mentor whose influence on the Queensland family law community spans four decades and whose continued active practice makes that influence tangible rather than purely honorary.

25. Sarah Grace

Sarah Grace is Special Counsel and Brisbane Leader at Travis Schultz & Partners, and was elected as an Ordinary Member of the Queensland Law Society Council for 2026. Her election reflects the pathway through which Queensland lawyers at growing specialist firms are contributing to profession governance alongside their practice work.

Her dual role as a senior compensation law practitioner and a QLS Councillor places her at the intersection of firm leadership, specialist practice, and profession advocacy. Her engagement with the profession body alongside her work building TSP's Brisbane presence reflects a form of law firm leadership that extends beyond the walls of a single practice to the broader health and direction of the Queensland legal profession as a whole.

26. Mia Behlau

Mia Behlau is a Director at Behlau Murakami Grant Legal, a Gold Coast commercial litigation and dispute resolution firm, and has served as a QLS Councillor throughout 2025 and 2026. She is a past president of the Gold Coast District Law Association and a current director of the St Hilda's Foundation and Gold Coast Basketball, reflecting a community engagement breadth that is distinctive among Queensland lawyer-leaders.

Her active engagement across professional, governance, and community leadership roles in the Gold Coast legal community reflects what profession leadership looks like outside Brisbane. Her ongoing presence on QLS Council represents the Gold Coast legal community's voice in a profession body that has historically been Brisbane-centric in its membership composition, and her profile as a commercial litigator running her own firm alongside her advocacy work makes her one of the most genuinely multi-dimensional figures in this category.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several Queensland legal figures were carefully considered for this list and narrowly missed the final selection. Rebecca Fogerty, the 2024 QLS President and Immediate Past President at the time this list was compiled, has contributed significantly to the profession but was not included given her primary leadership role fell in the year preceding this list's focus period. The Queensland Law Society Future Leaders Committee, which gives voice to practitioners aged 35 and under or with five or fewer years post-admission experience, represents a collective emerging leadership voice that deserves ongoing attention from anyone tracking where Queensland legal leadership is heading next. The ALPMA Queensland chapter's leadership community, connecting legal practice managers across the state, was another group whose collective influence on how Queensland firms are run is substantial but whose individual voices are less publicly visible than the people on this list.

Common Mistakes Queensland Law Firm Leaders Make

The most common mistake Queensland law firm leaders make is assuming that being an excellent lawyer is sufficient preparation for leading a team of lawyers. The skills that make a practitioner outstanding at client work, including analytical precision, risk focus, scepticism, and comfort with complexity, are often the same qualities that make leadership difficult. Developing a practice group leader or incoming managing partner without deliberate investment in their leadership capability is one of the most costly things a Queensland firm can do, and one of the most common.

A second common mistake is conflating succession planning with succession announcements. Many Queensland firms have a named successor but no structured programme to prepare that person for the demands of firm leadership before the transition happens. The three to five years before a managing partner transition are the period when the most important leadership development work can occur, and most firms use that time primarily on transactional matters rather than leadership preparation.

A third mistake is treating culture as a values statement exercise rather than a leadership behaviour question. The culture of a Queensland law firm is determined almost entirely by what partners and senior lawyers do rather than what the firm documents say. Firms that invest in articulating values without changing the behaviour of their leadership, particularly around accountability, feedback, and psychological safety, typically find that the values exercise produces cynicism rather than alignment.

A fourth mistake, noted by several of the people on this list, is underinvesting in wellbeing as a leadership issue. The Queensland profession's historical tendency to treat burnout and mental health as personal problems rather than leadership responsibilities is changing, but too slowly and too unevenly. The firms that are doing this well are treating wellbeing as a firm performance issue rather than an HR programme.

Book Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, to facilitate a Working Genius session, DISC communication workshop, or executive offsite for your law firm's leadership team. Many organisations find that flying Jonno in costs less than engaging high-profile local providers. Whether virtual or face to face, reach out to jonno@consultclarity.org.

How to Implement: A Practical Guide for Law Firm Leaders

The first and most immediately actionable thing any Queensland law firm leader can do is follow the people on this list. Start with the QLS Proctor publication, which publishes regular updates on Queensland legal leadership, profession body news, and practitioner profiles. Subscribe to Matt Dunn's QLS updates and Peter Jolly's 2026 president communications for a real-time window into the profession's current priorities and regulatory pressures.

For firm leaders specifically, the Midja Fisher and Clarissa Rayward communities offer practical entry points into the leadership development conversation. The Legal Leadership Project's programmes have been delivered across many Queensland firms and are specifically designed for the lawyer-to-leader transition rather than generic management development. Happy Lawyer Happy Life's content is useful for any firm leader thinking about retention and wellbeing alongside performance.

For managing partners of mid-tier and independent Queensland firms, the McCullough Robertson centenary model offers a useful reference point for how an independent firm can publicly articulate its identity and its community obligations as part of a coherent leadership narrative rather than as separate marketing and HR activities. The firm's $1 million pro bono housing commitment in 2026 is the kind of strategic gesture that connects financial strength to community purpose in a way that resonates with clients, recruits, and partners.

For leaders of small and boutique Queensland practices, the voices at the QLS Sole and Small Practice Breakfast Series in April 2026, including Rizwana McDonald, Claire Styles, and Anna Morgan, offer the most directly applicable thinking on business model innovation, niche strategy, and the practical challenges of running a practice that deliberately does things differently. Their willingness to speak publicly about what is actually working in their models is a resource that practitioners outside Brisbane can access without attending the event.

For any Queensland law firm investing in a leadership offsite or team development programme, the Working Genius framework offers a practical starting point for understanding how a partnership group works together, where collective energy is strongest, and where friction is most likely to emerge. A facilitated Working Genius session for a law firm executive committee or partner group typically surfaces insights about collaboration and decision-making that years of informal partnership experience may have obscured. Engage Jonno White to facilitate that session by emailing jonno@consultclarity.org.

For more on building strong law firm leadership teams through facilitated offsites, check out my blog post "21 Best Law Firm Leadership Offsite Facilitators in Australia (2026)" at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/law-firm-leadership-offsite-facilitators-australia. For a broader perspective on Australian and New Zealand law firm leadership voices, see "35 Best Thought Leaders in Law in Australia and New Zealand (2026)" at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-law-australia-nz. For global law firm leadership thought leaders, see "50 Essential Thought Leaders in Law Firm Leadership" at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-law-firm-leadership.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most influential thought leaders in Queensland law firm leadership right now?

The most influential voices in Queensland law firm leadership in 2026 include QLS President Peter Jolly and CEO Matt Dunn at the profession body level, Kristan Conlon and the McCullough Robertson joint managing partners at the large independent firm level, and Midja Fisher and Clarissa Rayward for legal leadership development. Elizabeth Shearer's election as Law Council of Australia President-Elect gives Queensland a national voice that carries significant weight on the issues shaping how law firms are led.

What makes law firm leadership in Queensland different from other Australian states?

Queensland's legal market is distinguished by the strength of its independently owned mid-tier firms, a legal aid and community legal sector that is unusually active in profession governance, and a geographic diversity that extends from inner Brisbane to Cairns and requires genuinely different leadership approaches in different markets. The QLS's reach into regional Queensland and its active annual conference and award programme create a profession community that is more cohesive than the market fragmentation might suggest.

How can I develop leadership capability within my Queensland law firm?

The most effective approaches combine external facilitation with internal commitment. The Legal Leadership Project's programmes, designed specifically for the lawyer-to-leader transition, have been delivered across a broad range of Queensland firms. Facilitated Working Genius sessions help partnership groups understand their collective working patterns and where friction is most likely to emerge. Engaging an external facilitator for an annual partner offsite creates a dedicated space for strategic alignment conversations that are difficult to have within the normal rhythm of billable work. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss what would work best for your firm's leadership team.

What are the biggest leadership challenges facing Queensland law firms in 2026?

The three most significant challenges in 2026 are AML/CTF regulatory compliance requiring new firm-wide governance structures, AI adoption requiring leadership clarity about what technology will and will not replace in practice, and generational succession requiring firms to develop leaders before they are needed rather than after a transition has already occurred. The wellbeing and mental health of practitioners remains an ongoing leadership challenge that the best Queensland firms are addressing at the leadership behaviour level rather than the policy level.

Final Thoughts

Queensland's legal leadership conversation is richer, more geographically diverse, and more practically innovative than it often appears from the outside. The 26 people on this list represent a cross-section of that conversation: from the elected leaders of the Queensland Law Society setting the profession's agenda, to the managing partners of independent firms navigating their centenary and their next hundred years, to the innovators building entirely new kinds of legal practice, to the educators and development specialists giving the next generation of practitioners the leadership tools they were never taught in law school.

What connects them is a willingness to engage publicly with the challenges of their role, to articulate what they are trying to build and why, and to contribute to a conversation that is bigger than any single firm or career. That willingness is itself a form of leadership that the Queensland legal profession needs more of, and that every law firm leader in this state can practise regardless of the size of their practice or the length of their career.

The most important investment any Queensland law firm can make in its own leadership is not a strategy document. It is a deliberate decision to develop the leadership capability of the people who lead the firm, before the moments of crisis or transition that make the absence of that capability costly. The voices on this list have done exactly that in their own careers, and their example is available to every Queensland practitioner willing to pay attention.

To discuss how Jonno White can support your Queensland law firm's leadership team through a Working Genius facilitation session, DISC communication workshop, or executive offsite, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International and interstate travel is often far more affordable than clients expect.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected. To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Sources

Queensland Law Society (Proctor). McKenna, P. and Rynowecer, M. (2025). "Burning Issues Survey of Law Firm Leaders." University of Queensland Law Journal (2025). "Leadership in the Modern Law Firm," Vol. 44 No. 3. QLS Excellence in Law Awards 2025. Law Council of Australia.

Next Read

The people on this list are shaping the Queensland conversation on law firm leadership from inside the profession. For a broader look at the global and national voices doing the same work at scale, including the world's leading consultants, researchers, and academics on law firm strategy, partner performance, and cultural transformation, the thought leaders in the global directory are worth your time.

Global voices on law firm leadership, from Patrick McKenna's partner performance frameworks to Laura Empson's research on professional service firm leadership, provide the research and theoretical grounding that Queensland practitioners can apply to their own context. The two conversations, Queensland and global, are richer for being read together. Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-law-firm-leadership