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The new Dean of the Law Faculty doesn't waste time.

Professor Erika Techera arrived at UWA from Macquarie University last year. Having done a lot of work on the legal protection of marine life and environments, she hot-footed it down to the Oceans Institute.

"Almost before I knew it, I was working on Ocean Solutions Dialogues and was part of the leadership team," she said.

Professor Techera, environmental lawyer, advocate for shark protection, and the first woman to lead the Faculty of Law, is used to things happening quickly. Little more than a year after joining the faculty, she is the Dean, after the departure of Stuart Kaye.

"It's an exciting time with our Majors in New Courses starting last year, and the Juris Doctor program commencing this year. I am delighted and honoured to be leading the Faculty in 2013," she said.

"When you consider that, since the 1980s, more women than men have graduated from law schools across the country, it seems extraordinary that I am the first woman to hold this position at UWA," she said.

"Historically, the Dean was usually the most senior person in the faculty, the person with longevity of service. If you had tried to find a 60-year-old woman with 30 years' university service, you wouldn't have had much of a chance.

"But things have changed. Over the past 10 years, the position has transformed from a more academic position to being at least 50 per cent administrative.  And so you tend to see people appointed earlier in their careers, which opens up a lot more opportunities for women."

Professor Techera works in international and comparative environmental law.  She is currently interested in the governance of sharks, and has an ARC Discovery grant with the Dean of Macquarie Law School, Professor Natalie Klein, to look at the protection of sharks, which she feels are much maligned.

"They play a very important role in keeping the oceans healthy," she said. "Whales are protected by their own treaty, and tuna, for example, by fisheries agreements. But sharks fall somewhere between whales and tuna: some are conserved and protected, others are part of the fishery industry."

Professor Techera's two children were born while she was an undergraduate and she didn't take her bar exams until she was 30. "After seven years as a barrister, my children were in high school and I wanted a less stressful job and to be able to spend more time with them, so I did my PhD and entered academia."

She completed her PhD in a lightning two years, after winning Vice-Chancellor's commendations from Macquarie for her Masters degrees.  Her PhD research looked at small island states in the Pacific and how they could hybridise indigenous customary law and state legislation.

"Legal pluralism in countries like Samoa makes legal governance a challenge. About 85 per cent of the population is indigenous and the government is poorly resourced. It's extremely hard to enforce state-based laws when most people live at least a partially traditional lifestyle.

"Now I'm in WA, I'm starting to look at the Indian Ocean rim countries where there are so many legal systems in practice: common law, Dutch and French civil law, and Sharia, just for a start."

Professor Techera is also interested in finding a sustainable balance in the workplace. "We need economic, social and environmental sustainability; in other words, balance - to ensure economic stability and that people are happy, as well as to protect the environment without any of these components upsetting the other."

She would like to see vegetarian food served at faculty functions, not because she is a vegetarian (but she is careful to source her meat from sustainable supplies) but because it is a more sustainable practice.

"It's just a small thing, but I haven't been in the job for 100 days yet."

If she continues at her usual pace, the Dean won't be wasting any of them.