Sally Dowling is an Australian lawyer who has been Director of Public Prosecutions for New South Wales since August 2021.
Dowling is one of three children; her mother, Stephanie Claire, worked as an English teacher and writer, and later married artist Salvatore Zofrea.[1] Dowling attended North Sydney Girls High School but left in Year 11. She worked as a waitress and a bookie's clerk before later completing her HSC at TAFE.[2] She graduated from the University of Sydney in 1994.
Dowling was admitted as a legal practitioner in 1995. She worked as an associate to Justice Hill in the Federal Court before practicing intellectual property and trade practices law as a solicitor. She was admitted as a barrister in 1997 and worked in private practice in commercial and intellectual property.
Dowling started work at the DPP in 2001 and became a Crown prosecutor since 2005. In 2004, when her children were very young, Dowling was the only part-time trial crown prosecutor in NSW, working one week on, one week off. She acknowledged that it was very difficult to work part-time as a barrister and still earn enough to cover expenses, but said that working part-time "promotes efficiency."[3]
In 2013, Dowling was appointed senior counsel and in 2016 she was appointed deputy senior Crown prosecutor and head of the appeals unit within the NSW office of the DPP.[4] In 2019, she was senior counsel assisting the NSW Government's Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug ‘Ice’. In 2020, she became a barrister in private practice at Wardell Chambers.
Dowling was appointed to a ten-year term as Director of Public Prosecutions in August 2021.[5] She is the first woman to hold the role.[6]
Dowling has two children.[7]
In 2018, Salvatore Zofrea's portrait of Dowling was a finalist in the Archibald Prize.[8] [9]