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Joe Lederman - Managing Principal

Joe Lederman is Managing Principal of FoodLegal and heads up our FoodLegal team of lawyers and consultants.  Aside from representing clients in various food sectors, Joe also has clients in the life sciences and therapeutics fields. He has also undertaken special assignments for several government agencies.

The FoodLegal team handles Australian food regulatory compliance and risk assessment for entry and ongoing legal compliance for products and marketing campaigns in accordance with the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, the Australian Consumer Law, Import Controls and Export Controls, and defending or advising across a range of other food legal regulatory issues at Australian Federal and State jurisdictional levels.

Joe Lederman has been (2006 – 2009) an Adjunct Professor of Food Law at Deakin University specializing in Food and Nutrition Law.

After graduating in law from the University of Melbourne in 1977, Joe Lederman’s work for many years centered on commercial and revenue law. He was recognised and accredited by the Law Institute of Victoria as an Accredited Specialist in Business Law and as an Accredited Specialist in Taxation Law. In 1986, he founded the Australian law firm Baldwins. With this background in advising on revenue law and commercial law for food companies, Joe established the original Australian food law websites “Australian Food News” and “Food Law and Policy Australia” (Australian Food News is now operated through an associated company as an independent commercial business news service for the food industry online).

Since 1998 and ongoing, Joe Lederman has been the principal author and contributing editor for the “Food Law” section of “Halsburys Laws of Australia”, published by law publishers Lexis-Nexis (formerly Butterworths) . This is Australia’s main encyclopedia of Australian laws. Joe has also edited CCH Australia’s “Food Safety Guide”. He has contributed research papers to academic journals and has written a chapter on Australian food laws in a text book on comparative international food laws published in Mandarin by Shantou University in China.

For many years, Joe Lederman has written papers and spoken at numerous industry seminars on a wide range of food industry topics.

In October 2010, Joe Lederman was a speaker for the Ausbiotech 2010 National Conference.

In September 2009, Joe Lederman addressed the Healthy Directions for Dairy conference organised by Dairy Australia and Dairy Innovations in Melbourne. In January 2009, he presented a research paper to the inaugural International Food Law and Policy Symposium of Deakin University on the legal implications for consumers of mandatory fortification food standards in the event of a change in the scientific consensus.

In May 2008, he spoke at the inaugural Australian Genetically Modified Crops Summit, providing legal analysis of the issues surrounding GM crop co-existence and segregation, and GM food marketing legal issues.

In March 2007, he made an online presentation to the foundation meeting in Cologne, Germany of a global food lawyers network. His presentation illustrated the then current position of the law of health claims and nutrition claims in Australia.

He has also been a regular keynote speaker at numerous FoodLegal Symposiums and training courses and also at various food regulatory or labelling law workshops around Australia.

Many people receive “FoodLegal Bulletin” which is edited by Joe Lederman and which is Australia’s premier food law publication (distributed on-line through Lawmedia Pty Ltd) in relation to topical food issues. One can subscribe to the FoodLegal Bulletin database here.