Shahleena Musk is Larrakia lawyer from Darwin. She was the first Aboriginal person to graduate from the Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) and to be admitted to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. Musk worked as a Crown Prosecutor for the Director of Public Prosecutions in both the Northern Territory (1998–2001) and Western Australia (2006–2007). For over a decade she worked with the Aboriginal Legal Services in WA and the NT. In 2013 Musk was instrumental in the creation of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) youth team and took on the role of the Senior Youth Justice Lawyer. In 2014, NAAJA’s youth justice team was a finalist in the National Children's Law Awards. In 2015, she was jointly awarded the Fitzgerald Youth Award for her innovative and holistic approaches to working with Aboriginal youth involved in the criminal justice system. Musk joined the Human Rights Law Centre in Melbourne in 2017, working in the Indigenous Rights Unit. Since 2020 she has been the Manager, Koori Advisory and Engagement at the Commission for Children and Young People. She is also a director at the Larrakia Development Corporation, providing employment and business opportunities for Larrakia people, and is on the steering committee of the #RaiseTheAge Campaign, a national coalition to raise the age of legal responsibility from ten to fourteen.
