Joanna Knoth

Joanna is a Special Counsel with over 15 years' experience across a range of contentious and non-contentious employment, industrial relations and workplace health and safety matters. She is known for her responsive, pragmatic and commercial advice as well as being a strong team builder and an effective communicator.

Experience

Joanna provides advice and representation to clients across a broad range of employment and industrial matters.

She regularly educates clients in person and via webinar or digital videoconferencing, regarding the Respect@Work legislative reforms and work health and safety legislative reforms, including in relation to psychosocial risks.

Joanna also represents clients in the Courts and the Fair Work Commission, including as counsel in unfair dismissal and anti-bullying claims, and briefs external counsel where necessary.

Joanna carries out complex workplace investigations, workplace training, and workplace mediations, conciliations and conferences and is an NMAS qualified mediator.

Joanna's areas of expertise include:

• workplace legislative compliance
• employment law claims including unfair dismissal, general protections, and anti-bullying claims under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)
• modern award interpretation, coverage and classification
• enterprise agreement interpretation, making and approval
• management of workplace grievances, ill and injured employees, employee performance disciplinary processes and termination of employment
• change management, redundancy and transfer of employment
• drafting employment contracts, executive service agreements, contractor agreements, bonus / incentives plans, post-employment restraints, and workplace policies and procedures
• carrying out workplace investigations. area of expertise.

Career highlights

Joanna's career highlights include:

• representing clients in the Fair Work Commission in unfair dismissal and anti-bullying hearings, including Full Bench appeal proceedings
• project lead for a significant industrial instrument compliance project, identifying instrument coverage and classifications for approximately 4,900 unique positions for a large national retailer
• firm lead on major industrial strategy and contingency planning project on the Ichthys offshore LNG Project, including management of industrial disputation
• instructing solicitor in Federal Court proceedings: Fair Work Ombudsman v Pocomwell (No2)[2013] FCA 1139
• instructing solicitor in Federal Court proceedings: Allseas Construction S.A. v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2012] FCA 529.