A Hobart law firm founded in 2001, working in property, family law, wills and estates — and in the constitutional, environmental and human-rights matters that shape Tasmania and Australia. We act for individuals, families, small businesses, associations and charities. We don't act for the big end of town.
FitzGerald and Browne instructed the barristers representing former Senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam in the High Court. The judgment that followed disqualified the then Deputy Prime Minister and four other parliamentarians on dual-citizenship grounds — one of the most consequential constitutional cases in Australian history.
Constitutional Law · Section 44Hailed by the Bob Brown Foundation as one of the most significant decisions under the EPBC Act since 1999. The first time failure to apply the precautionary principle was the subject of a Federal Court decision. The Tasmanian Masked Owl case sent the Tarkine mine approval back to be made again.
Environment & Planning · EPBC Act$2.1 million in damages. The first case to go to trial against the State of Tasmania after time limits were relaxed to allow historic sexual-abuse claims. Twenty-five thousand dollars in exemplary damages against the perpetrator and fifteen thousand against the State for reckless indifference.
Personal Injury · Historic Sexual AbuseRoland Browne founded the Tasmanian Coalition for Gun Control in the late 1980s. He was at home in Hobart on the morning of 28 April 1996 — chairing a meeting to draft Tasmanian gun-law reform — when the Port Arthur call came. His advocacy fed into the post-Port Arthur reforms and, three decades later, the 2026 national buyback.
Public Policy · Gun Law ReformWe chose, when we founded the firm in 2001, not to act for the big end of town.
That decision still defines us. Our clients are individuals, families, small businesses, associations and charities. We take important community matters at reduced fee or no-win-no-fee, and we have done since the beginning. Three decades of forest cases, environmental cases, sexual-abuse cases, and constitutional cases have been carried this way.
We also do the everyday work that keeps a Hobart family in order: buying and selling property, drafting wills, settling estates, navigating divorce and parenting. The same care goes into both.
Buying or selling, residential or commercial. Subdivisions, off-the-plan, transfers between family members.
Read more →Divorce, parenting and property matters. Family Violence Orders. Coercive control. Children's representation.
Read more →Wills, estate planning, probate, contested estates. Powers of attorney and enduring guardianship.
Read more →Environment, planning, anti-discrimination, civil liberties, administrative review. Reduced fee or no-win-no-fee for community matters.
See casework →A practice of seven lawyers — four partners, two associates, a senior solicitor — plus a conveyancing assistant. Several of our lawyers hold appointments on state and national civil-society boards. Two have been finalists for, or contributors to, Australia's human-rights legal canon.
Partner · Co-founder
Civil and criminal practice. Vice Chair, Gun Control Australia. Public-interest litigation since 1988.
Partner · Co-founder
Thirty years in family law. Doyle's Guide Leading Family Lawyer (Tasmania), 2014 and 2017.
Partner · Heads Family Law
Federal Circuit and Family Court. Cited in published research on coercive-control reform.
Partner
Tasmanian Director, Civil Liberties Australia. Lead petitioner, Tasmanian Human Rights Act.
Roland Browne interviewed on Australia's response to the Bondi Beach attack.
Member for Nelson tables motion for a Tasmanian Human Rights Act this term.
Save Tasmania Rally — among the largest outside Parliament in decades.