TWC Lawyers in the media

The items below are the whole list

Law firm media pages have a habit of growing. A masthead logo appears because someone once answered a reporter’s question. A nomination becomes a permanent banner. We have kept this page to items we can point at, each with a date and a link, and nothing else.

There are three pieces of outside recognition and they involve three people.

• Courier-Mail, October 2025. Gabby King and Yasmin Elabbasi were included in a feature on Brisbane’s influential lawyers under 30.
• Lawyers Weekly 30 Under 30 Awards, 2026. Gabby King named a finalist in the criminal law category.
• 30 Under 30 Awards, 2022. Elizabeth Main named a finalist in the criminal law category, recorded on her profile and in the post announcing her promotion to partner.

The two partner promotions listed further down are firm announcements rather than outside coverage, and they are labelled that way. We have not mixed the two, because a firm that presents its own press release as media coverage is telling you something about the rest of its claims.

A finalist placing is a nomination, not a win, and none of this says anything about how your own matter will go. It is a signal about the people, not about outcomes. The full run of firm news sits on the blog.

What we will and will not comment on publicly

This is our editorial policy, and we publish it rather than keep it internal, because you are entitled to know what a firm would say about you if a reporter called.

What we will talk about

• How a Queensland process works. What a committal is, what happens at a first mention, how a section 222 appeal to the District Court runs, how a disqualification period is calculated.
• A decided case, once judgment has been delivered and any appeal period has run, discussed on the published reasons rather than on what somebody told us.
• Legislation and law reform, including a Bill before Parliament and what it would change in practice.
• Sentencing principles that are already public, including the factors a court must consider under the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld).

What we will not touch

• A matter that is before a court. Not ours, not anyone else’s. Publishing material with a real tendency to prejudice a pending proceeding is sub judice contempt at common law, and the risk period runs from arrest or charge until the proceeding is finally determined, appeals included.
• A client’s matter, without written instructions and consent. Rule 9 of the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules prohibits disclosure of information confidential to a client acquired during the engagement, except where the client authorises it or the law compels it. That obligation does not end when the file closes.
• Anyone whose identity is protected by statute. That includes complainants in sexual offence proceedings, children, and parties to domestic violence and family law proceedings. The provisions are set out below.
• Another firm’s client. Commenting on a case you are not in, on the strength of a news report, is how lawyers end up correcting themselves in public.
• Predicted outcomes. We will not say what a court is likely to do to a named person. Rules 28 and 36 of the Conduct Rules exist partly to stop that, and it is a poor use of a lawyer’s time in any event.

The people we may not name are protected by real offence provisions, not by convention. Publishing anything likely to identify a complainant in a sexual offence proceeding is an offence under section 6 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1978 (Qld), and an adult complainant can only authorise publication in writing under section 10. Identifying a child dealt with under the Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld) is an offence under section 301, and identifying a child in the child protection system is an offence under section 189 of the Child Protection Act 1999 (Qld), each carrying a maximum of 100 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment for an individual. Publishing information from a proceeding under the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012 (Qld) is restricted by section 159. Family law proceedings are restricted by Part XIVB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), which replaced the former section 121.

For journalists working to a deadline

Phone 07 5522 5777 and say what your deadline is. We would rather give you fifteen minutes of accurate background than have a Queensland provision reported wrongly and then repeated for a decade.

What we can usually help with at short notice is procedure and statute. Which court hears a charge and why, what a committal actually decides, what a magistrate can and cannot do about a mandatory disqualification, how bail is decided under the Bail Act 1980 (Qld), what a suppression order is and who can apply for one.

What we will not do is comment on a live matter, confirm whether a named person is a client, or speculate about a result. If we act in a matter that is already on the public record, we will say that we act and nothing further.

Two requests. Attribute a comment to the named solicitor who gave it rather than to "a Gold Coast lawyer", because a statement of law with no name attached becomes somebody’s legal advice. And send the quote back before publication if you can, since a section number transposed by one digit changes the offence.