New ISA Fellowship recognises the impact of a late Indonesian reformer

Melbourne Law School alumnus Ibrahim Sjarief Assegaf (1971 - May 2025) was a champion of a more transparent and judicially accountable Indonesia, and a leader of the transformative law reform processes that emerged in Indonesia after the collapse of Soeharto’s New Order.

Through his work as an outstanding legal activist, scholar, digital law pioneer, and Managing Partner of leading Indonesian law firm Assegaf Hamzah & Partners, he helped shape the country’s contemporary legal landscape.

Now the Ibrahim Sjarief Assegaf (ISA) Fellowships offered by Melbourne Law School in partnership with Assegaf Hamzah & Partners will honour his legacy, expertise and vision.

The new Fellowship will support future legal leaders advancing reform, scholarship, public service and cross-border engagement between Australia and Indonesia. In particular, the Fellowships will recognise Ibrahim’s contribution to developing innovative approaches to contemporary legal challenges in Indonesia, deepening critical reflection on Indonesian legal practices, and advancing reform.

Ibrahim was a founder of Hukumonline, Indonesia’s first comprehensive online legal database. It helped democratise legal knowledge in a country where statutes, judgments and other basic legal information had long been notoriously difficult to obtain.

Ibrahim also worked as an adviser to the Indonesian Supreme Court's Judicial Reform Committee where his work supported efforts to strengthen judicial independence, improve court administration systems, and enhance public access to court information. This included establishment of the Supreme Court’s free decision database, which now features almost 10 million decisions - one of the largest databases of its kind in the world.

Ibrahim maintained strong ties to Australia after completing Melbourne Law Masters postgraduate study at Melbourne Law School (MLS) as an Australian Development Scholar. As a MLS alumnus, his career intersected closely with the broader research and reform conversations fostered by the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS) and the Asian Law Centre. More recently, he supported the bold initiative of a group of civil society law reformers to establish a model, progressive new law school – Jentera, where he became a business law professor.

Melbourne Law School now invites expressions of interest for a Postdoctoral Fellow (up to 6 months) and a Visiting Fellow (up to 3 months), who will be resident at MLS in 2026.x

The Fellowship will be hosted by CILIS, the only university research centre outside Indonesia dedicated to Indonesian law. Established in 2013, CILIS engages in innovative research on Indonesian law, fostering critical dialogue and collaboration between scholars and practitioners globally.

The ISA Fellowship will support innovative scholarship on a wide range of aspects of Indonesian law, including (but not limited to) legal reform, judicial reform, access to justice, law and technology, corporate law, and banking and finance law. Fellows will be supported by MLS experts and CILIS colleagues committed to supporting law reform and institution building in the Asia-Pacific region through strategic partnerships and engagement.

Melbourne Law School is excited to welcome exceptional academics, legal practitioners (including lawyers, judges, and prosecutors), or civil society leaders undertaking innovative legal research projects as ISA Fellows. We hope the ISA Fellowships will foster research on innovative approaches to contemporary legal challenges in Indonesia and deepen critical reflection on prevailing legal practices.

“Ibrahim Sjarief Assegaf embodied the highest ideals of legal service, using expertise not just for personal success but for societal transformation. The lawyers he mentored, the legal reforms he supported, and the technological innovations he pioneered are his legacy, as is his vision of legal knowledge - and justice - being one day accessible to all Indonesians.”

- ‘In Memoriam: Farewell to a Legal Visionary: Ibrahim Sjarief Assegaf, 1971-2025’

Simon Butt and Tim Lindsey
Australian Journal of Asian Law.

For more details and how to apply, click here.