Susan Kiefel

Susan Mary Kiefel, born in 1954, is an Australian jurist who served as the thirteenth Chief Justice of Australia from 2017 to 2023, the first woman to hold that office, after sitting on the High Court of Australia from 2007. She became Queensland first female Queen Counsel in 1987, sat on the Supreme Court of Queensland from 1993 to 1994, and served on the Federal Court of Australia from 1994 to 2007. Her 2007 appointment to the High Court made her, alongside Justice Susan Crennan, part of the first time two women sat on the court concurrently, and she was noted as a conservative jurist among the court most frequent assenters, dissenting in only two of one hundred sixty four cases between 2014 and 2018.