Olivia Grobtuch had the principal conduct of Kennon v Spry, the High Court decision that remains the leading authority on how discretionary trusts are treated in family law. She is a founding partner of Kennedy Partners, obtained her specialist accreditation in 1990, and holds a current Victorian practising certificate as a Principal with Trust at Kennedy Partners Lawyers Pty Ltd. The register lists family law and child protection and children’s law against her name.
Doyle’s Guide has ranked her in the Melbourne family and divorce list in every edition since 2015, and Preeminent since 2023. She is one of five in that top tier in 2026, and one of five ranked Preeminent for high-value and complex property matters in Victoria. She is Leading in the national family and divorce list and Recommended for parenting and children’s matters. Doyle’s rankings are produced by peer survey, and this profile is not a paid placement.
Background. Her firm biography records more than thirty years in family law and says she has served on various Law Institute of Victoria committees, including sub-committees on family law reform. She has been a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers since September 2016 and is a member of the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia. The biography says she has had the principal conduct of several landmark decisions in the appellate jurisdiction of the Family Court of Australia and the High Court of Australia.
Olivia Grobtuch’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 Olivia Grobtuch, 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.
A slow, steady climb. Doyle’s ranked her Leading in Melbourne for eight straight years, 2015 to 2022, before moving her to Preeminent in 2023, where she has stayed. The Victorian high-value property list followed the same path one step behind — Recommended 2020 to 2022, Leading 2023 and 2024, Preeminent 2025 and 2026 — and the national list moved from Recommended to Leading in 2023. Her parenting listing has gone the other way, from Leading in 2018–2020 to Recommended since.
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.
Her firm biography says her skills cover every facet of family law practice, and names the following:
Reported cases. Besides Kennon & Spry, her biography names Levy & Prain ([2012] FamCAFC 92) and Trevi & Trevi ([2018] FamCAFC 173). These are her firm’s statements about her involvement, reproduced here as published; this site does not verify outcomes in individual matters, and a lawyer’s role in a reported case is not a prediction about yours. 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.
Olivia Grobtuch 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.
Kennedy Partners is a family-law firm in the Melbourne CBD, of which she is a founding partner. Doyle’s also ranks Ian Kennedy in three of its 2026 Victorian lists — Leading for high-value and complex property, and Recommended in both the Melbourne family and divorce list and the parenting list.
The firm itself is ranked. Doyle’s places Kennedy Partners in the First Tier of its 2026 Melbourne family law firm rankings. The firm’s Google Business Profile carried a 4.2 rating from 38 reviews when we retrieved it on 12 September 2026.
The register records her address as Melbourne VIC 3000.
We are not her office and cannot make appointments on her 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 Kennedy Partners’s Google Business Profile, retrieved 2026-09-12. Reviews are of the firm, not an individual rating of Olivia Grobtuch. View on Google →
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