Dr Stern specialises in advocacy in courts and tribunals, including advising solicitors on how best to maximise their clients’ prospects of success in litigation and drawing up instruments and other documentation as instructed by solicitors to this end.  Dr Stern works in such areas of practice as:

• Administrative Law
• Commercial Law
• Constitutional Law
• Corporations and Securities Law
• Employment and Industrial Law
• Equity and Trusts
• Evidence in common law litigation, civil and criminal proceedings
• Intellectual Property
• Taxation

More about Dr Steven Stern:

Dr Stern practises as a Barrister-at-Law.  Traditionally, Australian legal practitioners admitted to legal practice in the State of Victoria were admitted as Barristers and Solicitors.  A relatively smaller proportion of these Australian legal practitioners have undertaken to practise exclusively as Barristers and not as Solicitors.  Dr Stern has given such an undertaking.

Dr Stern welcomes briefs from solicitors to appear, advise and draw up documents in all court and tribunal matters. Dr Stern is a Registered Tax Agent and so also welcomes briefs on tax matters from accounting firms which employ solicitors.  Dr Stern is a registered trade mark attorney and so also welcomes briefs on patent and trade mark matters from firms of patent and trade mark attorneys who employ solicitors.  Dr Stern does not accept instructions directly from persons who are not solicitors or from bodies which do not employ solicitors (other than in such exceptional and rare circumstances as where, for example, he might perform a small amount of essential and urgent “barrister’s work” for a client on the basis that the client is in the process of finalising the engagement of an instructing solicitor or he is functioning as a “duty barrister” making a “one-off” appearance or giving a “one-off” advice as part of such arrangements as those provided under the Victorian Bar Duty Barrister Scheme).  Dr Stern is instructed by the solicitors who have briefed him.  Dr Stern does not communicate directly with clients where any such communication would bypass his instructing solicitors.  Dr Stern enters into costs agreements with solicitors in respect of work that he is briefed to undertake.  The contractual arrangements in respect of such work are between Dr Stern and his instructing solicitors.

Dr Stern’s Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) at the University of Melbourne on the influence of financial law on monetary economics received the highest possible grading by the external examiners.

Dr Stern’s Master of Laws degree (LLM) at The University of Melbourne included a major thesis on the protection of computer software which was published in an abridged form as a major article in (1986) 60 Australian Law Journal 333.

Dr Stern has a basic knowledge of classical and modern literary (but not spoken or colloquial) Arabic and of Hebrew. He has lectured on Islamic law in seminars at the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as a visitor from Victoria University.

Dr Stern is the List Secretary of List S Svenson Barristers and the Library Committee Secretary of the Victorian Bar Council’s Library Committee.  Dr Stern is also a member of the Committee of the Tax Bar Association at the Victorian Bar; a member of the Law Institute of Victoria’s Administrative Review & Constitutional Law Committee; a member of the Tradeco Marks Committee of The Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia; and a member of the General Council of the Economic Society of Australia – Victorian Division.  Dr Stern is a Chartered Tax Adviser; a Fellow of The Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of  Australia; holds an Indictable Crime Certificate from the Victorian Bar; is a Senior Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia; is a member of the Australian Academy of Forensic Science; regularly is invited to make presentations to Continuing Professional Development seminars; and continues to publish the results of his research on the law and how its changing substantive provisions are influenced by commercial, economic, political and scientific developments in a series of refereed publications recognised by the Australian Research Council.

Steven is a Registered Tax Agent and a Registered Trade Mark Attorney.