Photo of Erin Hawthorne

Erin enjoys using the opportunities presented by difficult employment and industrial problems to deliver outcomes for her clients.

She has worked in both private practice and in-house roles and uses her experience of being a client to deliver the best legal strategy through a lens of practicality.

An experienced litigator representing employers when litigation is unavoidable or advantageous, she has the game plan needed to protect or attack.

This year, the campaign theme for International Women’s Day is #EmbraceEquity. This theme encourages people to acknowledge and understand that providing equal opportunities is not enough to achieve inclusivity. This is because equality-based solutions assume a level playing field––the same resources are allocated to all, disregarding the fact that those at a disadvantage will remain

Employers around Australia will need to review and centralise sexual harassment prevention initiatives in light of the new duty in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to take “reasonable and proportionate” measures to prevent sexual harassment.

The nature and extent of this positive duty will be the subject of much legal argument. But what is clear

We have seen a market driven push for companies to embrace diversity and inclusion (D&I) policies over the last few years, which reflects a key shift in social and cultural norms for many organisations. Increasingly, consumers, staff and senior business leaders expect proactive steps to be taken for D&I objectives. Research demonstrates a strong business

Employee burnout is high, with one recent survey reporting that one in three participants say they experienced this in the last 12 months. This can lead to disengagement, high staff turnover and claims connected with mental illness or injuries.

To mark the fact that today is World Day for Health and Safety at Work, we

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021 estimates that at the current rate of progress it will take more than two and a half centuries to close the worldwide gender gap in economic participation and opportunity, with Australia ranked 70 out of 156 countries. Although the proportion of skilled women in the workforce

The pandemic has prompted many organisations to adopt ‘hybrid’ work models. Seyfarth’s global Future of Work pulse survey in 2021 found that navigating remote and hybrid work was the number one concern that in-house legal and business leaders had coming out of the pandemic. There are a number of key reasons why ‘hybrid’ work is

Our project was finished. With grins on our faces, my colleague and I walked towards each other, hands sailing through the air in synchronised arcs. Onlookers shouted, “No, don’t! It’s not COVID-safe….” Our grins faded, but it was too late. We high fived. Cringed. And hand sanitised.

There’s going to be an awkward

The first time a global client asked me for a template employment diversity form, I didn’t know what they were after.

They wanted to track their workforce’s diversity attributes (asking every person about race, gender identity, sexual orientation, disabilities, etc.) so that they could track performance on their broader diversity targets. This is typical practice

The line between lawful and unlawful unpaid work is not always clear.

Many companies are contacted by people offering to work on a voluntary basis.  It is often pitched as a “win-win” because the person is willing to work for free in exchange for experience and contacts, particularly in high demand industries such as sports,