David Jenkins — Senior Solicitor
David has practised criminal law in Cairns his entire career, on both sides. He started out defending people, spent two and a half years prosecuting serious crime, and has come back to defence.
He studied law at James Cook University in Cairns and was admitted in 2019. For his first four years in practice he was a criminal defence solicitor. He ran a busy practice in the Magistrates Court, covering bail applications, summary trials, sentences and committals, and prepared serious matters for the District and Supreme Courts, where he instructed counsel. He advised his clients on the strength of the evidence against them, the defences open to them and the likely sentence.
In 2023 he joined the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Cairns, and became a Senior Legal Officer. His job was to read the police brief in serious cases and decide which charges the evidence could support at trial. He negotiated those charges with defence lawyers, and appeared for the prosecution in sentences in the District Court and the Childrens Court of Queensland.
That is the experience he brings to your defence. David knows what the prosecution has to prove. He reads the police brief the way a prosecutor will, for what it can prove and where it falls short. He knows what a prosecutor weighs when deciding whether to reduce a charge or not go ahead with it, and he negotiates on that basis.
Most recently a solicitor at Cairns Community Legal Centre, David joined Civic Law as Senior Solicitor in October 2026. If David is your lawyer, he stays with your matter from start to finish.
David's Qualifications
- LL.B, Bachelor of Laws, James Cook University
- Post-Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, The College of Law
- Admitted, Supreme Court of Queensland, 2019