Michael Murray

Michael Murray is an insolvency law writer and commentator, with an extensive background in practice in personal and corporate insolvency and Commonwealth regulatory law.

He writes for a number of LexisNexis publications including; Practice and Procedure High Court and Federal Court of Australia, Ford, Austin and Ramsay’s Principles of Corporations Law, Bankruptcy Law and Practice and Business Law of Australia. He founded the Insolvency Law Bulletin in 2001 and has regularly been its editor and contributor.

Michael was previously a lawyer with the Australian Government Solicitor, a Solicitor Assisting on the HIH Royal Commission, and a member of the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee (CAMAC). He was for several years the Legal Director of the Australian Restructuring, Insolvency and Turnaround Association (ARITA) and in that role was instrumental in the drafting of the ARITA Code of Professional Practice, and in making submissions on policy and law on major insolvency reforms, in particular the Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 and the 2017 “safe harbour” protection for directors. Michael was a visiting fellow at the Queensland University of Technology from 2012 to 2020. He has attended and presented at conferences here and overseas including the UK, the US, China, Japan, Vietnam and India.

Michael now writes on insolvency and related law and policy through Murrays Legal and works with the judiciary and academia as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, as a fellow of the UNCITRAL National Co-ordination Committee for Australia and as a member of the Insolvency Academics Network. He made extensive submissions to the 2023 PJC Inquiry on corporate insolvency and is cited throughout the report. He is appointed both by the Attorney-General and by the Assistant Treasurer to bankruptcy trustee and company liquidator registration and discipline committees respectively.

He is qualified in law and criminology from the University of Sydney and in insolvency law from the University of Southern Queensland.