Ms Linda Jurevic

Lecturer
B.Commerce, LL.M. , JD. (Juris Doctor)

A long, long time ago Linda graduated with a degree in Commerce and worked in retail. She wore designer clothes and dated a stockbroker. After a few minutes of the Regan Administration, she became incensed and completed her JD (Juris Doctor) from Northwestern School of Law ( Lewis & Clark College) in Portland, Oregon. Upon graduation she worked for a private law firm where she practiced in family law and construction lien law before following her heart and entering the community legal sector. She worked for several years in a rural community legal centre where she practiced in the areas of domestic violence, landlord/tenant law, and public benefits law. She is admitted to the Oregon State Bar, as well as the Federal District and Court of Appeals Courts.

After arriving in Perth in early 1992, she was lured into the academia by Professor Ralph Simmonds who convinced her it would be a perfect panacea for the burnout she was experiencing. He was right. The academic life gave her time to reflect on how the justice system fails to address the many needs of those disenfranchised through poverty, and illness, and abuse. In 2000, Linda worked for six months at Murdoch’s community legal centre (SCALES) where she discovered that the Australian poor face substantially similar disadvantages as their American counterparts.

In 2006 she will be teaching Australian Legal System, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Negotiation, and Social and Welfare Law. She hopes that she will have time to resurrect her interest in writing and research by publishing her thesis on addressing spiritual issues within the context of transformative mediation, and beginning research on whether emotional abuse can be addressed through the restraining order process. She is also looking forward into developing an intensive unit on negotiation-one which will enable old and young alike to embrace conflict productively and with grace. Linda believes it is time that the legal profession reclaims it professional status and stops using corporate values to guide it.