Dee Kelly

Dee has over 20 years of litigation experience, including over 15 years' specialist health law experience defending claims against public hospitals, private hospitals and doctors.

Dee has significant expertise in defending large, complex health claims across a range of jurisdictions in New South Wales and Queensland. She also assists doctors in responding to disciplinary investigations, and acts for doctors, hospitals and indemnified nursing and midwifery staff in coronial hearings and investigations.

Experience

Dee is admitted to the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia. Her litigation experience spans defending matters in the District Court and Supreme Court in both Queensland and NSW.

Dee has extensive panel experience acting for government self‑insurance schemes, including more than eight years acting exclusively on instruction from the NSW Treasury Managed Fund for local health districts. More recently, she spent three years acting on instruction from the Queensland Government Insurance Fund for hospital and health services.

Dee has also acted for multiple private hospital entities and medical defence organisations.

A significant part of Dee’s practice involves defending high‑value and technical claims, and she has a particular interest in defending complex obstetric claims.

Dee also acts for doctors and hospitals in coronial inquiries and inquests, and assisting doctors to respond to regulatory investigations.

Career highlights

Dee's career highlights include:

• acting for various public hospitals, private hospitals, hospital health services (Queensland), local health districts (New South Wales) and doctors in multi-party complex medical negligence proceedings in the District Courts and Supreme Courts of Queensland and New South Wales
• acting in defence of a claim relating to the provision of services and resourcing at a remote Queensland health clinic
• defending multiple claims against public hospitals relating to maternal birth injuries sustained during instrumental deliveries with multiple issues with respect to antenatal and intrapartum care and informed consent
• defending multiple claims against public hospitals and obstetricians relating to birth‑related hypoxic brain injuries
• defending multiple claims against both public and private hospitals relating to surgical and post operative management
• successfully defending a contribution claim against a VMO obstetrician in a complex cerebral palsy claim
• acting for multiple local health districts in a complex coronial matter relating to the management of a young man with acute hydrocephalus.