Professor John Sharkey AM

Professorial Fellow

Sharkey Consulting

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Overview

John Sharkey is the former head of the Construction and Engineering Division of Norton Rose Fulbright Australia and has practised construction law for over 40 years. He is the co-author of Building and Construction Contracts in Australia (Law Book Co. 2nd ed. 1990) and Commercial Arbitration (Law Book Co. 1986).

John was a founding board member of the Society of Construction Law Australia and a founding fellow of The International Academy of Construction Lawyers. He is the State editor for Victoria and Tasmania of the journal Building and Construction Law and the former chair of the Law Council of Australia’s Construction Law Committee.

John Sharkey was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2006 and in 2010 was the inaugural winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Lawyers Weekly. He was appointed an honorary professorial fellow of the University of Melbourne in 2015 and in 2020 was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

John is head of the research arm of the Construction Law program at the Law School of the University of Melbourne and practices as a commercial arbitrator both domestically and internationally.

Recent publications that John has authored or co-authored include:

  • Standard Forms of Contract in the Australian Construction Industry- Research Report , The University of Melbourne 2014
  • Australian Rules: A survey of the High Court of Australia on construction law 1965-2016, (2017) 91 ALJ 986
  • The Health of the Australian Construction Industry-Research Report , The University of Melbourne 2020