Joanne Seve is an Australian lawyer based in Sydney, New South Wales. She was formerly a partner of Freehill Hollingdale & Page and PricewaterhouseCoopers, later worked as a sole practitioner and state taxes consultant, and served as a judicial member of the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Background
Seve's documented life is centred on New South Wales, the Australian state whose capital, Sydney, is its largest city. Sydney began as a British penal settlement in 1788 and developed into the commercial centre of the country, a setting in which large commercial law firms built their practices during the twentieth century.
Her legal career developed within this urban legal and commercial environment, beginning with her studies at the University of Sydney and her admission to the bar in New South Wales in 1981.
Education
Seve studied at the University of Sydney, where she completed a Bachelor of Laws. Founded in 1850, the University of Sydney was the first university established in Australia and remains one of the country's oldest and most established centres of legal education.
A law degree from New South Wales provided the academic foundation for admission to legal practice in the state, which she obtained in 1981 before entering the commercial law firms and tax practice described below.
Career
Seve was admitted to the bar in New South Wales in 1981, starting her legal career in Sydney. Her subsequent career combined partnerships in large commercial practices with specialist work in state taxation.
She was a partner of Freehill Hollingdale & Page, a Sydney firm whose origins date to the nineteenth century. The practice took the name Freehill Hollingdale & Page in 1947 and grew into one of Australia's leading commercial law firms under the direction of partner Brian Page. The firm became a national partnership under the name Freehills in 2000 and merged with the London firm Herbert Smith in 2012 to form Herbert Smith Freehills.
She was also a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a multidisciplinary professional services network formed in 1998 through the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand. She additionally worked part-time with the tax group of Allens, an Australian commercial law firm, for more than ten years.
Seve later practised as a sole practitioner and state taxes consultant. She served as a judicial member of the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal, assigned to its Revenue Division and Appeal Panel. The tribunal was established in 2014 to resolve a broad range of disputes, and its Revenue Division hears matters concerning state taxes and revenue.
In July 2022 she spoke on a panel of state revenue officials at the State Taxes Convention, alongside representatives of the revenue offices of Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. She has also established and administers four state taxes websites.
Membership
Seve is a member of the PCA NSW/Revenue NSW Tax Committee. Revenue NSW is the revenue agency of the New South Wales government, and the committee concerns the state tax matters that form the core of her specialist practice.
