William Lye is an experienced King’s Counsel, Arbitrator, Mediator, and Company Director committed to the law, to education, and to giving back to the community. He is a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia, awarded for service to the law, to business, and to the promotion of cultural diversity.

William is currently National Chair of the Order of Australia Association Ltd; Chair of Foley’s List, one of Australia’s oldest and largest barristers’ lists; a Member of Council at Swinburne University of Technology, where he has chaired the Audit and Risk Committee; a Councillor of the Victorian Bar Council and Deputy Chair of the Counsel Committee; and a Director of the Australian Mediator and Dispute Resolution Accreditation Standards Board Ltd, the national governing body for mediator and dispute resolution accreditation in Australia.

William has contributed to the community across law, education, humanitarian causes, and cultural diversity. He founded the Asian Australian Lawyers Association, the peak body representing Asian Australian lawyers nationally, chairs the William Ah Ket Scholarship Committee, and serves as Honorary Patron of the North American Australian Lawyers Alliance Inc.  He holds adjunct professorial appointments at Monash University and Swinburne University of Technology. He is Vice President of the Australian Committee for the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the world’s largest and oldest international moot court competition involving over 700 law schools from 100+ countries. He is Co-Chair of Project Sunflower, a volunteer legal initiative appointed by the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations to document evidence relating to the conflict in Ukraine.

William holds a Master of Laws from Monash University, a Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, and a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Science from Monash University. He was named Barrister of the Year at the 2017 Lawyers Weekly Australian Law Awards.