Frances Anderson

Assistant Victorian Government Solicitor

BA.LLB, LLM

Current practice

Frances leads a team of lawyers delivering workplace relations and occupational health and safety advice to government and the Victorian public sector.

Experience

Frances is an experienced workplace relations lawyer with a proven track record of success. She has 30 years of workplace relations experience, initially in South Africa where she was a director of a major law firm and head of the Cape Town workplace relations practice, and in Australia where she relocated in 2001 to continue her legal career. Frances' experience in Australia includes working both in law firms and in-house and across multiple business sectors.

Frances has most recently been Lead Counsel, Industrial Relations, at GM Holden Ltd (Holden) where she had responsibility for providing legal support and strategic advice on all aspects of workplace relations. While at Holden, she worked closely with the business and other key stakeholders on a wide range of matters, including significant enterprise agreement negotiations, achieving optimum outcomes and positive results for the business.

Frances also has advocacy experience, having represented Holden and numerous other clients in various courts and tribunals.

Frances has particular expertise at workplace change and restructure, managing workplace disputes, providing strategic and tactical advice, working in culturally diverse, complex and highly regulated organisations and in advising and managing risk in organisations with heightened political and legal sensitivities.

She has written on workplace relations topics of interest for various publications and has presented at seminars and conferences, most recently at the International Bar Association's Annual Conference in Sydney in 2017.