Dr Matt Collins AM KC
Senior Fellow (Melbourne Law Masters)
Victorian Bar
Overview
Dr Matt Collins AM KC is a past President of the Australian Bar Association and of the Victorian Bar, a member of the Board and Council of the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and a Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School. In 2019, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to the law, to legal standards, and to education.
Dr Collins holds a PhD from Melbourne Law School. He is the author of all three editions of The Law of Defamation and the Internet (Oxford University Press, 2001, 2005 and 2010), the standard international text on the application of principles of defamation law to online publications, and Collins on Defamation (Oxford University Press, 2014), a generalist text on the law of defamation of England and Wales. He has also written many peer-reviewed articles on aspects of media law.
In his practice as a barrister, Dr Collins has acted in many of the most significant defamation and free speech cases in Australia over the past generation.