Elizabeth Carroll

Expertise

Elizabeth is the firm’s managing partner for ACT and is also the joint sector lead for the Australian Government. Elizabeth is an award-winning lawyer with over 25 years’ experience, specialising in public and administrative law. She regularly advises on privacy, freedom of information, secrecy, data, legislative drafting, statutory interpretation, compliance and regulatory issues. She has an in-depth understanding of the needs of government clients, having successfully led the legal teams at three Commonwealth agencies, most recently as Chief Legal Counsel at IP Australia. Elizabeth enjoyed giving back to the community through her previous role as President of the ACT Law Society.  She has a strong track record of client service and delivery on innovative legal projects, supporting clients to harness the benefits of technology while addressing privacy and accountability issues.

Elizabeth received the ACT Law Society’s Government Law Award in 2016. In 2020 she was named General Counsel of the Year in the Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Awards, and Government Lawyer (as well, her team was Government Team of the Year) in the Lawyers Weekly Corporate Counsel Awards 2020.

Elizabeth was also included in Australasian Lawyer’s In-house Leaders List 2020, and was listed in Managing Intellectual Property Magazine’s 50 Most Influential People in IP in 2019. Elizabeth was recognised in the 2024 Doyle’s Guide edition as a leading ‘Commercial Litigation, Dispute Resolution and Insolvency’ lawyer in Canberra. She was recognised in the 2025 Doyle’s Guide edition as a recommended ‘Intellectual Property and TMT’ lawyer and in 2025 received the President’s Medal from the Women Lawyers Association ACT. Most recently, she was named Lawyers Weekly’s Government Partner of the Year for 2026.

Experience

Elizabeth’s experience includes:

• advising Australian Government entities on privacy, data, secrecy, AI and information governance matters, including privacy advice, privacy threshold assessments, privacy impact assessments and addressing privacy complaints
• preparing privacy policies, collection notices and privacy governance materials for Australian Government entities, ensuring information handling practices are clearly explained and aligned with Australian Privacy Principle (APP) obligations and agency functions
• conducting privacy threshold assessments and preparing privacy impact assessments for new projects, programs, systems and data initiatives, including identifying privacy risks and recommending practical mitigations
• advising on management of data breach response for actual and potential data breaches, including data breach response plans, addressing breaches involving third party contractors, potential re-identification of de-identified data, disclosure to overseas contractors and assessment of notification obligations
• guiding privacy, data governance and accountability requirements for AI-enabled projects, including compliance considerations for existing and new projects, automated decision-making, human oversight, transparency, accuracy and privacy-by-design requirements
• developing advice on de-identification, re-identification risk, data minimisation, data quality, data sharing and data governance frameworks for public sector information holdings, including sensitive and high-volume personal information
• supporting public sector data sharing, data sharing agreements, data matching programs and protocols, and requests under the Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022 (Cth), including interactions between data sharing authorisations, secrecy obligations and privacy safeguards
• interpreting secrecy provisions across social security, child support, aged care, Medicare and health-related legislation, including the circumstances in which information may be used, disclosed or protected and the preparation of public interest certificates
• addressing privacy and data issues in the Care and Support Economy, including legal barriers to data sharing, options for enabling safe and lawful information flows, and governance settings to support improved service delivery
• assisting with freedom of information (FOI) matters, including FOI requests, third party consultation, internal and Information Commissioner reviews, Information Publication Scheme obligations and FOI proceedings in the Administrative Review Tribunal, Federal Court and High Court
• contributing to legislative reform, including consideration of policy options, preparation of drafting instructions and guidelines, compliance with consultation requirements, conducting consultation processes, and preparation of explanatory statements and other supporting materials including guidance documents
• working with agencies and regulators on governance and regulatory settings, including Regulatory Statements of Expectations, Statements of Regulatory Intent, regulatory guidance documents and the publication of guidelines.

Membership

• ACT Law Society
• Australian Institute of Administrative Law
• Australian Institute of Company Directors

Appointments

• ACT Curriculum Advisory Committee, College of Law, 2025-26
• Executive Member, Law Council of Australia, 2022–2024
• Chair, Governance Committee, Law Council of Australia, 2024
• President, ACT Law Society, 2020–2022
• Director, Law Council of Australia, 2020–2024
• Vice President, ACT Law Society, 2018–2020 
• Councillor, ACT Law Society, 2017–2024
• Australian Research Council Appeals Committee, 2019–2020