Our legal work
Every day, EJA lawyers and campaigners help communities use the law as a tool to create a radically better world.
We focus on working where we can make the biggest impact.
We partner with frontline communities, fighting for clean air and water and to make life safer and fairer.
We provide legal expertise and representation, so our clients can take on powerful companies and decision makers, and disrupt the systems fuelling destruction.
We focus on shifting the companies making the largest direct contribution to the problem. We expose destruction and injustice and challenge bad decisions. We crystallise risk for companies and shareholders.
We go to court to drive climate ambition. We challenge problematic regulatory frameworks and push for decisions based on sound science.
With our clients, we run urgent interventions and important court challenges to keep our forests standing for generations to come.
We focus on making the biggest the impact.
When we win battles in court for our clients and communities, we know we have the potential to create lasting systemic change.
But our work isn’t just about winning cases – it's about using the law as a lever to create a radically better world.
We work pro bono for individuals and small volunteer-run community groups at the frontlines of injustice – because we believe we are stronger together.
We use multiple legal avenues and strategies, including environmental law, climate and energy law, culture and heritage law, water law, public and administrative law, corporate and consumer law, as well as constitutional, international, civil, mining, criminal, and human rights law.
Sometimes our court cases run over many years. Sometimes we succeed in just days.
Some of our work never ends up in the courtroom. Often it's enough to have community members and groups backed by environmental lawyers, demanding information and asking questions.
Sometimes we achieve on-the-ground change through strategic legal interventions, high-stakes investigative research and public-interest advocacy.
We are committed to the law, our clients, to justice for all of us and this beautiful planet we call home.
What do we do?
We run landmark court cases
Setting game-changing precedents and disrupting the systems that are fuelling destruction and injustice
We use strategic legal interventions
Running powerful legal campaigns to investigate, expose and demand action and accountability.
We advocate for better laws
Fixing flaws in our legal system, pushing for better policies and improving the way our laws and made and enforced.
We help people have a say
Supporting communities to access information, challenge decisions and participate in the legal system.
Our work for climate justice
We run public interest litigation and legal interventions for a safe climate and justice for frontline communities.
Our work protecting ecosystems
We use the law to protect and regenerate vital ecosystems on the brink of collapse.
Our work ending pollution
We work with frontline communities seeking environmental justice from pollution and toxic contamination.
Our work for First Nations justice
We provide legal support to First Nations people fighting for Country and Culture.
Cultural flows at Margooya Lagoon
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‘Nullius’: water, law and overcoming the colonial project
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Complaint lodged in the Victorian Human Rights commission to stop brumby preservation group from racially vilifying Traditional Owners
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Working to reverse ‘aqua nullius’ for First Nations people on the Murray River floodplain
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Our work improving the law
We fix flaws in our legal system, push for better policies and improve the way our laws and made and enforced.
What is environmental justice?
No matter who we are, where we live, where we have come from
or how much we earn, we all deserve a healthy environment,
a stable climate and a say in the decisions that affect our lives.
Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.
It means we can all enjoy clean air and water, healthy communities and ecosystems, and homes free from toxic pollution – through sustainable management, protection and regeneration of our environment.
