Rate My Professor Lauren Butterly

Dr. Lauren Butterly serves as Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the UWA Law School at the University of Western Australia. She earned her BA in Australian history, focusing on Western Australian history, and LLB with First Class Honours from the University of Western Australia. She completed her PhD in Law at the University of New South Wales in 2020, with a thesis titled 'Reconciling Indigenous and Settler-State Assertions of Sovereignty over Sea Country in Australia’s Northern Territory', which garnered the UNSW Law PhD Excellence Award and the 2022 Australian Legal Research Awards PhD Award. Additionally, she holds a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice and is admitted to practice law in Western Australia (2009), New South Wales (2011), and the High Court of Australia (2011).

Butterly's academic career includes lectureships at the Australian National University College of Law and UNSW Law, where she was honored with the UNSW Law Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence and the Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award (Rising Star) in 2018. Prior to academia, she worked as Principal Associate to Chief Justice Wayne Martin of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, and practiced as an environmental and heritage lawyer at a top-tier Sydney law firm and as Special Counsel at the national not-for-profit Environmental Defenders Office.

Her research focuses on environmental law and governance, heritage law, administrative law, mining law, native title, and legal history, with emphasis on the intersection between environmental law and Indigenous peoples' rights, marine environmental governance, and Indigenous-led sea country management. As Chief Investigator on the ARC Linkage Grant LP210100011, she contributes to projects protecting Australia's marine estate. With 22 research outputs, key works include her peer-reviewed book Reconciling Sovereignties over Sea Country in the Northern Territory (Federation Press, 2024); 'Strangers in Sea Country: The Early History of the Northern Territory’s Legislation Recognising Aboriginal Peoples’ Relationships to the Sea' (Sydney Law Review, 2023); 'Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Reform in Australia and the Dilemmas of Power' co-authored with Lucas Lixinski (International Journal of Cultural Property, 2020); and 'Could the Public Trust Doctrine be used for Climate Litigation in Australia?' with co-authors (Australian Environment Review, 2020). She has also engaged in public outreach via blogs and podcasts on native title and marine issues.