EXPERIENCE & EXPERTISE

Richelle is a senior workplace lawyer with over 10 years of experience in acting for employers in the mining, transport, manufacturing and government sectors. Working alongside her clients’ management, human resources and legal teams, Richelle provides strategic advice and representation that is tailored to meet their individual workplace circumstances.

Richelle has a deep understanding of the dynamic laws, jurisdictions and legal concepts that govern workplace relations matters. She regularly advises on Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) interpretation and compliance, minimum entitlements, complex disciplinary and dismissal processes, restructuring and redundancy processes, workplace investigations, anti-discrimination and work health and safety.

Richelle has a wealth of industrial relations expertise, advising both corporate and government employers on the unique industrial frameworks that apply within their workplaces. She delivers practical advice to her clients across the full gamut of enterprise bargaining, union disputes and industrial action matters, and regularly appears before the Fair Work Commission in contested industrial disputes.

Richelle is also a skilled workplace advocate with a strong record of achieving positive litigation outcomes for her clients in the Federal Courts and the Fair Work Commission. She regularly represents employers in dismissal-related litigation and in the defence of work health and safety prosecutions.

Prior to joining Moray & Agnew, Richelle worked as a senior member of the workplace team at a preeminent national law firm.

Richelle is recognised for her proactive and client-focussed approach to workplace relations matters. She actively seeks to understand her clients’ unique organisations and workplace challenges, and her clients value her consistent, clear and practical advice. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Richelle is a keen workplace litigator, and has successfully defended her employer clients in many legally and commercially significant cases. Notably, she acted to preserve her client’s position in a test case involving the interpretation of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and taking leave on public holidays, and this case is regularly cited in other Court decisions concerning ordinary hours of work. Richelle also acted in defence of a heavily-contested challenge to a drug and alcohol dismissal which resulted in the Court upholding her client’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to this critical workplace concern.

Awards

Ranked in the peer-reviewed Best Lawyers® in Australia list for Occupational Health & Safety Law 2024