Dr. Howell has over 30 years of experience as a lawyer, strategic planner, educator and CEO. She is admitted to practice as a solicitor in Victoria and NSW and has served a term as the Secretary-General of the Law Council of Australia. Rosemary's professional expertise in strategic planning, facilitation and tertiary education has focused on enhancing the quality of professional and legal services through leadership roles in the legal profession's governing bodies, professional engagement in alternative dispute resolution techniques and engagement in higher education.

Since 1985 Rosemary's company, Strategic Action, has provided consulting services on planning, facilitation and training to State and Federal government departments and businesses in Australia, New Zealand, USA, UK, China and South Africa. Her clientele includes in-house counsel, major corporate entities and a large range of professional service businesses including architects, law firms, engineers and accountants. Strategic Action was named the top Australia-Pacific mediation practice in 2018, 2019, and 2020 by International Who's Who of Commercial Mediation. In 2021 and 2022, Rosemary was named as a Global Thought Leader in the field.

In 2005, Rosemary was awarded her Doctorate of Judicial Science (SJD) for her work on Negotiating with Lawyers, a qualitative study of the experiences of those for whom, and with whom, lawyers negotiate. This research allowed Rosemary to give theoretical voice to the professional skills and multi-disciplinary perspectives acquired through programs such as those she had taken and taught at Harvard University. It is these skills and perspectives that Rosemary hopes to pass on to Australia's future legal practitioners through her courses at UNSW.

Rosemary currently teaches Principled (Interest-based) Negotiation at postgraduate level at UNSW. In 2009, Rosemary proposed the development of a Master of Dispute Resolution and a Graduate Diploma of Dispute Resolution, which have been offered since 2010 and have now been rolled into the combined LLM program as a specialty.  

In 2011 she was appointed a Visiting Professor at Catholica University in Lisbon where she led the first ADR program delivered in its Masters Program.

Rosemary is a nationally accredited mediator and has appeared in the International Who's Who of Mediation since 2013. In 2020, that publication recognised her in 3 mediation categories: Global Elite Thought Leader, Global Leader, and National Leader. In 2022, Rosemary was again recognised as a Global Elite Thought Leader in the same publication.

Memberships, Appointments and Board Positions 

International

2010-21   Member of the ICC International Mediation Competition Rules Committee 

2015-18   Member, Rules Working Group, CDRC International Commercial Mediation Competition, Vienna

Law Society of NSW

2002-11   Director, Board of QL Inc. delivering Law 9000

1997-02   Director, New South Wales Board of QIL (Quality in Law)

1993-96   Chairman, Marketing Committee, Law Society of New South Wales

1992-96   Professional Development and Practice Management Committee, member

                Professional Development and Practice Management (Quality sub-committee), member

Legal Services Commission

2006        Committee on Conflicts in the Legal Profession 

Academic 

1981-83   Faculty of Law, Monash University (Board member)

National

2013-      Member of LEADR, now Resolution Institute 

2015-17  Board member, Resolution Institute

1986-87  Chairman, General Practice Section, Law Council of Australia 

1980-83  Secretary-General, Law Council of Australia

1980-83  Attorney-General's Committee on Legal Information Retrieval

1980-83  Managing Editor, Australian Law News, the Journal of the Law Council of Australia

1981 (May) Secondment to assist the Auckland District Law Society to establish its Management Advisory Service

Other

1982-91  Board Member, Council of Adult Education, Victoria and Chairman of Committee on Staff Conditions

1980-83  Member, Computerised Legal Information Committee, Victoria Law Foundation

1980-83  Member, Council of Legal Education Victoria

1980-81  Member, Association of Conference Executives