Meet Our Team
Our talented, experienced team is here to help you find solutions that meet your obligations in sustainable, effective ways.
About Us
We love what we do because we imagine workplaces and teams where people feel absolutely safe, and we delight in the productivity and excellence that flows from that. We want that for you and your teams, every bit as much as we insist on it here at Lacey & Co.
Integrity and strategy are at the heart of the advice we provide and the systems and plans we make with our clients.
We’ve settled complex native title disputes, got clients off death row, investigated: a range of inappropriate workplace conducts; sexual assaults on university campuses; and complex scientific research integrity matters. We’ve mediated, advised, represented, conciliated, advocated and resolved matters for clients from all walks of life.
If you have a legal problem which needs a sustainable solution that leaves your integrity intact, speak to one of our team at Lacey & Co.
Elizabeth
Lacey
Photo by: Craig Mitchell
A passion for human rights and a desire for social justice were the fuel for our Principal Elizabeth’s arts and law degrees, and after 20 years of practice, that focus remains and is channelled through her work as founder of Lacey & Co.
Elizabeth began her career working on death row cases in the US, before moving to an advisory role with commercial and government clients in some of Australia’s leading commercial law firms, including Minter Ellison. There, together with Charandev, she acted for the family of Mohammed Saleh in Australia’s first inquest into the death of asylum seeker.
Following this, Elizabeth left city law firms for the spectacularly remote Miriuwing Gajerrong country in the Kimberley. There she acted for the Miriuwing Gajerrong peoples and worked with Patrick Dodson to negotiate an outcome by consent after their native title application (the first lodged after Mabo) had previously been heard by 11 judges, including the High Court, without resolution. Inevitably leaving a chunk of her heart in Miruiwung Gajerrong country, Elizabeth moved to the Federal Court in Melbourne, where she worked as Associate to Justice Tony North and a Registrar of the Court.
Her belief that there is a necessary balance between doing what needs to be done in order to do good and throwing new ideas into the mix, is supported by the in-trays on Elizabeth’s desk: 1. “Our (burgeoning) pro-bono practice”; 2. “Latest nutcase ideas”; and 3. “No Client Left Behind”. This is the culture Elizabeth fosters in all who work with her at Lacey & Co. leading to passionate productivity, freedom for ideas to grow and a safe space to challenge and be challenged.
From the scientific integrity work which brings large-scale fraud into the public eye, to the provision of tools, advice, strategy and foundations that make her client’s workplaces safer and more productive, Elizabeth’s work, along with the village she’s founded at Lacey & Co, offers a team of experts who are relentless in compassion and unparalleled in IQ and EQ.
Integrity, fierce heart, intellectual and emotional rigour are the touchstones for Elizabeth’s life and work, coupled with her genuine attempts to be hilarious. Frankly, the funniest quips are delivered by her beautiful children, who are her pride and joy.
Morgan
McKinnon
Morgan is our head of operations and legal research, as well as a presenter and investigator. She’s the wheels to Lacey & Co’s well-oiled machine and a bastion of integrity. What she lacks in age, she more than makes up for in her attention to detail and wit; her thoughtful and considered approach to everything she does, and her efficiency.
Apart from being resident crazy dog lady, Morgan is the “go to” on legal research. She’s also the voice of logic and reason and the person you come to when you want something done efficiently and well, or to ensure someone else does. The painstaking attention to detail that gets our clients what they need is Morgan’s happy place. She’s peerless and tireless when it comes to the latest legal developments; every minutiae of an investigation; an application and suite of evidence to a Corruption Commission; a considered response to Fair Work; a complaint to the Human Rights Commission; a suite of policies and contracts; or a set of Standard Operating Procedures.
For Morgan, there is no greater compliment that can be bestowed than saying someone’s a goer, and she certainly is that! Morgan reminds us that context is everything, makes our client’s and our own lives easier and funnier, and tucks the office dog under his blanket.
If there’s spare time after all of that, Morgan is on the farm pretending she is in McLeod’s Daughters (whatever you do, don’t mention that it’s ended: we haven’t worked out how to break it to her yet).
Eve Phyland
Photo by: Craig Mitchell
Eve is a recent graduate of an Arts/Law degree from Monash University and our Head of Client Engagement and Process . Having spent the last five years ricocheting between despair and empowerment in her conception of the law, Eve understands the law’s power both as a tool of oppression and activism and is thrilled to be contributing to the latter by fighting the good fight with Lacey & Co. Her Arts background in Psychology, Criminology and Anthropology have given her a keen interest in examining holistically the human elements of a legal problem.
Eve has worked and studied in environments both harmful and enabling and knows the difference lies in practice around safety, openness to difference and, above all, respecting the humans around you. In a multicultural society we must respect that we live and work in diverse environments and this provides an incredible opportunity to consider a range of perspectives, allowing enhanced creativity and flexibility.
She thoroughly believes that people are better able to achieve goals when they are empowered, safe, and respected.
When taking a break from getting frown lines from reading the news, Eve enjoys obsessively watching the first season of a TV show and never going back, detailing the genetic make-up of her family dog (yes, her father sent off for a DNA test so Eve can confirm that he is indeed 2% wolf) and reading a little too much sci-fi to be socially acceptable.
Our Story
Lacey & Co began as a concept named “Fish”. You know the Chinese proverb, right? Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day, teach them to fish and you feed them for a lifetime. Rather than being a drain on your legal budget, as Fish, and now Lacey & Co, we provide the kind of sustainable lawyering, advice and strategy that doesn’t just hand over the salmon, but teaches your workplace village to fish.
Enter jokes about scales of trout versus the scales of justice and legal fees being on the nose.
Our most recent incarnation was as Blue Sky Resolution, inspired by Charandev gently asking us and our clients two key and essential questions: “can we be better?” and “what’s the blue sky scenario here?”.
But now, we need to reflect the village that makes up this team, that teaches you and your people to fish and that wonders with you about the blue sky scenario for your work, and helps you work toward it. The Lacey part of the name comes because this village is Elizabeth’s fifth child, and the Co are utterly essential to Lacey, and to our success. We’re The Integrity Group because we feel it’s vital, before all else, to do the right thing even when no one is watching.
The village at Lacey & Co is a team that is more than the sum of its considerable parts. It’s a group which collaborates and listens. An environment founded on safety for its members and its clients, which means our productivity is incredible and our focus unrelenting, it means that we know we’re at work, but it’s still endless fun. There’s freedom for ideas to grow, to challenge and be challenged, and to help you reach solutions which will sustain you and yours.
