Rate My Professor Paula O'Brien

Prior to her academic career, O'Brien graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BA/LLB (first class honours in law and arts) in 1998. She practiced law at Minter Ellison Melbourne until 2003, principally in administrative law, advising public sector agencies on the regulation of health professionals. From 2003 to 2007, she served as Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH) in Victoria, engaging in case work, advocacy, and education to advance the public interest for marginalised and disadvantaged community members; for this work, she was awarded the Women Lawyers 'Rising Star' Award in 2007. O'Brien received a full Commonwealth Scholarship for her LLM (class I, specialising in international law) at the University of Cambridge in 2008 and completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne. Notable publications include "Health worker shortages and global justice" (O'Brien and Gostin, 2011), "Cancer warning labels on alcohol containers: A consumer’s right to know, a government’s responsibility to inform, and an industry’s power to thwart" (Stockwell et al., 2020), "Australia's double standard on Thailand's alcohol warning labels" (O'Brien, 2013), and "Industry influence over global alcohol policies via the World Trade Organization: a qualitative analysis of discussions on alcohol health warning labelling, 2010–19" (Barlow et al., 2022). She teaches in the Melbourne JD program, including laws50058 Melbourne University Law Review.