e: Christie@osbornlaw.com.au

m: 0488 109 892

Christie Howson brings a wealth of experience to Osborn Law in the constantly changing and ever challenging area of employment law. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce (Financial Accounting) and has been qualified as a solicitor since 2000.

Christie has practiced extensively in this area for over 25 years and some of the work that she has performed involved the following:

• Drafting industrial documentation including common law employment contracts, subcontractor agreements and enterprise agreements for a large mining contractor

• Advising on compliance with workplace laws and in particular, the Fair Work Act 2009 and Modern Award compliance for many industries including manufacturing, black coal, retail, administrative and hospitality

• Enterprise Agreement negotiations, strategy advice and complying with Fair Work requirements for ratifying

• Advising on terminating problem employees in order to reduce exposure to an unfair dismissal or general protections claim, including but not limited to performance and conduct issues, redundancy, medical retirement

• Appearing at Fair Work Australia on behalf of clients to defend unfair dismissal and general protections claims

• Assisting an engineering client who bought a business to understand the legal obligations of transferring employees

• Advising a construction client on restraint of trade issues when a senior manager resigned and attempted to solicit clients

• Appearing in a case for our client which involved in a claim for damages of $750,000.00 in the Federal Court in Queensland for an adverse action claim for breach of the general protections provision of the Fair Work legislation

• Advising client in the medical field on the use of subcontractor agreements and License agreements

• Assisting client in the amusement industry to respond to an audit by the Fair Work Ombudsman

• Conducting an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment

• Provide advice on compliance with Work Health and safety Act 2011

Christie regularly conducts in house training sessions for Osborn law’s client employers to assist our clients and their managers on how to deal with effective performance management, and bullying and harassment claims. She has also conducted workplace investigations into claims.

Christie also worked for 4 years in a national law firm in insurance law where she acted on behalf of workers compensation insurers. This background assists greatly in employment law work when complex workers compensation issues are involved.

In addition to the employment law work, Christie manages major commercial litigation disputes, particularly those in the Supreme Court of NSW but also in the District and Local Courts.

Christie is a former Director of the Hunter Defence Support Network (HDSN) which was formed in 2015 as a single-purpose community support and advocacy group focused on improving the lifestyle of Australian Defence Force (ADF) members and their families whilst posted to the Hunter Region.