Jason Walker chairs the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia, the peak national body for the profession. He was elected to the role in December 2024, after serving as Deputy Chair from 2022 and Treasurer before that. He is a partner of Forte Family Lawyers, a Law Institute of Victoria Accredited Family Law Specialist since 2005, and holds a current Victorian practising certificate as an Employee without Trust. The register lists three areas of practice against his name: family law, child protection and children’s law, and family violence and statutory offences.
Doyle’s Guide has ranked him Preeminent for parenting and children’s matters in Victoria every year since 2022 — five consecutive editions. He is one of six lawyers in that top tier in 2026. He also holds three other current Doyle’s listings: Leading in the Melbourne family and divorce list, where he was Preeminent in 2024 and has been ranked in every edition since 2015; Leading for high-value and complex property matters in Victoria; and Recommended in the national family and divorce list. Doyle’s rankings are produced by peer survey, and this profile is not a paid placement.
Background. He was admitted in 1999 and holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, both 1997. He joined Forte Family Lawyers in 2021. He has been a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers since 2015 and has served two terms on its global executive committee and a term on its Asia Pacific chapter executive. He was an Accredited Children’s Law Specialist from 2012 to 2018, a founding member of the Law Institute of Victoria’s Children’s Law Specialisation Advisory Committee, a past Chair of its Family Law Section, and former co-editor of Australian Family Lawyer. Best Lawyers named him Lawyer of the Year for Family Law Mediation in Melbourne for 2027.
Jason Walker’s current rankings, from the 2026 edition of Doyle’s Guide. Firm affiliation is shown as published by Doyle’s. Every earlier edition is set out in the full ranking history below.
Doyle’s Guide publishes a separate annual list for each practice area and state, so one lawyer can hold different tiers in different lists in the same year. Below is every published Doyle’s listing we could verify for Jason Walker, from 2015 to 2026, with the tier reached in each edition. Each list was opened individually on doylesguide.com on 15 September 2026 — no run of years has been inferred from a single page.
What the record shows. The parenting list moved up once and held: Leading from 2018 to 2021, Preeminent from 2022 onwards. The Melbourne family and divorce list is the restless one — he has been ranked in all twelve editions since 2015 and has moved between Recommended, Leading and, in 2024, Preeminent. His earlier listings record him at Gadens before Forte Family Lawyers.
Years are the edition years Doyle’s publishes. Where a year is missing from a run, the practitioner was not in that edition of that list, which we confirmed by searching the page rather than assuming it. See also our hub of Doyle’s-ranked Melbourne family lawyers.
His firm biography names the following areas of expertise:
A practice with institutional clients. Two entries in that list are unusual for a family lawyer: his biography says he advises schools, and Australia’s major banks, on family law issues — work that arises when a third party is drawn into a family law proceeding rather than when a relationship ends. The firm does not publish fees.
Source: the firm’s biography page, reviewed 15 September 2026. Practice areas are as published by the practitioner or the firm. This site does not verify outcomes in individual matters.
Jason Walker is listed on the Victorian register of lawyers maintained by the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner. The entry below is reproduced as it appeared on 15 September 2026.
Forte Family Lawyers is a family-law-only firm in the Melbourne CBD. Doyle’s ranks four of its lawyers in the 2026 Melbourne family and divorce list — Jason Walker and Jacky Campbell as Leading, Wendy Kayler-Thomson as Leading, and Jemma Mackenzie as Recommended — and Louise Cooney as Recommended for parenting and children’s matters in Victoria.
The firm itself is ranked. Doyle’s places Forte Family Lawyers in the Second Tier of its 2026 Melbourne family law firm rankings. The firm’s Google Business Profile carried a 4.2 rating from 15 reviews when we retrieved it on 12 September 2026.
The register records his address as Melbourne VIC 3000. His firm biography gives a direct line of +613 9248 5800 and the email jwalker@fortefamilylawyers.com.au.
We are not his office and cannot make appointments on his behalf. Contact the firm directly, or use our matching service if you would like us to put your matter in front of a family lawyer.
Firm-level rating aggregated from Forte Family Lawyers’s Google Business Profile, retrieved 2026-09-12. Reviews are of the firm, not an individual rating of Jason Walker. View on Google →
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