Vavaa Mawuli

Vavaa has amassed significant litigation, advocacy and dispute resolution experience during her legal career across a number of public interest and social justice roles. She is one of the lawyers heading the class action against the operators of Somerset and Wivenhoe dams arising from the devastating flooding in South East Queensland in January 2011, one of the largest class actions in Australia.

Vavaa is a determined and hardworking lawyer, driven by a commitment to social justice and the belief that the socio-economic status of an individual should not be a barrier to obtaining justice through the legal system. This commitment saw her join the firm in 2012, becoming an integral part of a team that actively works to remove barriers to accessing justice for people who have suffered loss at the hands of corporate and governmental wrongdoers.

“I have dedicated my career in the law to working as an advocate for socially and economically disadvantaged members of the community,” says Vavaa.

“The most rewarding thing about my work on class actions is the change in scale of what we are able to accomplish. We are able to use the legal system to redress injustices on behalf of victims of a mass wrongdoing, and at the same time use that system to force change and prevent further occurrences of the same wrongdoing.”

Before joining Maurice Blackburn, Vavaa worked as a lawyer at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Sydney where she conducted public interest cases including a class action in conjunction with Maurice Blackburn against the State of New South Wales over the false imprisonment of children by police. She also acted for Aboriginal workers deprived of their wages and entitlements by previous State governments, and as a criminal defence lawyer in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and for Aboriginal Legal Services in Sydney.

Vavaa has also worked on a voluntary basis with a number of community organisations. This work has included developing training resources for use by a youth service when delivering legal education in schools and supporting an organisation that advocates for the rights of women in the criminal justice system.

Memberships & accreditations

• Queensland Law Society member