Margaret Casey KC
Mills Lane Chambers
Auckland, New Zealand

Margaret is a barrister practising in Auckland, New Zealand. She graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA, LLB and has a Masters in Law from Kings College London.

Margaret has had a long interest in the practice of adoption law, domestic and international, and is an acknowledged expert on legal issues associated with assisted reproduction and surrogacy as it is practiced both within and outside New Zealand. Margaret has been counsel in the majority of New Zealand cases involving children born as a result of domestic and international surrogacy arrangements. She is regularly appointed as counsel to assist the court in complex adoption and surrogacy matters.

She was appointed to the Experts Group at the Hague Conference on parentage/surrogacy  in  February 2016. Margaret was one of the experts consulted by the New Zealand Law Commission in its work on surrogacy reform and was part of the Law Society group who crafted submissions for the Select Committee on the  recent proposed surrogacy legislation. She is a member if the International Academy of Family Lawyers and is the co-convenor of it’s Parentage Committee.

Margaret was appointed Queen’s Counsel in July 2015.

 
Sarah Jefford OAM
Surrogacy & Donor Legal Services
Melbourne, Australia

Sarah Jefford OAM (she/her) is a family creation lawyer, practising in surrogacy and donor law across Australia. Sarah was an IVF mum, an egg donor, and delivered a baby as a surrogate for two dads in 2018. Sarah produced the Australian Surrogacy Podcast and  published a book, More Than Just a Baby, a guide to surrogacy for intended parents and surrogates.

Sarah was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in 2023, for her services to the law, and to the surrogacy community.

In 2025, Sarah completed a Churchill Fellowship, travelling around the world to research best practice surrogacy, to inform law reform in Australia. Sarah looks forward to sharing her findings and insights with the Australian surrogacy professional community.

Rebecca Kerner
chair, Australian and New zealand Infertility Counsellors Association (ANZICA)

Rebecca Kerner is an UK-trained, independent and private practice Psychotherapist and Senior Counsellor with over 25 years international experience specialising in infertility, grief and relationship issues. She has worked with individuals and couples in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, and is a passionate advocate for patient centred care. Rebecca is the Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Infertility Counsellors Association (ANZICA) and the Psychology and Counselling Special Interest group for the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE). She is also a person with a lived experience of infertility and the struggle to create a family.

She has led numerous parliamentary submissions both at state and national levels, including appearing before the Australian Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry Community into the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve’s Law) Bill 2021. Rebecca also sat on the Australian Guideline Development Group for the Australian adaptation of the evidence-based guideline for Unexplained Infertility.

Jason Walker, LOC Chair
Forté Family Lawyers
melbourne, Australia

Jason Walker joined the Section Executive as the Victorian Solicitor representative in December 2018 and was elected as Treasurer in December 2020, Deputy Chair in June 2021 and Chair in 2024.

Jason is a Partner at Forté Family Lawyers and is an Accredited Specialist in Family Law (2005). His practice involves complex property and complex parenting disputes.

Jason has previously served as the Chair of the Family Law Section of the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) and is a current member of the Executive of the LIV Family Law Section. He has also served on a number of LIV committees and was a founding member of the LIV Children’s Law Specialisation Advisory Committee, which is responsible for assessing and examining candidates for specialisation in Children’s Law.

Jason was the Deputy Chair of the Family Law Section’s National Family Law Conference held in Melbourne 2016.

Jason is a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers and a member of Pacifica Congress.

Jason is regularly named in the Doyle’s Guide list of Leading Family and Divorce Lawyers (Melbourne). Jason has also been ranked in the Doyle’s Guide list of Leading High-Value & Complex Property Matters Family Lawyers (Melbourne) and list of Preeminent Parenting & Children's Matters Lawyers (Victoria).