The Indiana Supreme Court is welcoming some of its colleagues from other countries this month, first an Australian justice and then a group of jurists from the Ukraine.

Justice Marcia Neave of the Australian Supreme Court of Victoria, Court of Appeals division, is visiting Indiana this week as part of a lecture at Valparaiso Law School. She was slated to meet today with Indiana Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard and Justices Ted Boehm and Robert Rucker; they were to take an afternoon tea break in the high court's law library.

Justice Neave spoke Tuesday about sex-offender law reform, a topic on which she is internationally recognized as an expert. An aspect of reform she advocates involves a controversial approach called "restorative justice," which involves perpetrators meeting with victims or victim representatives, admitting to a crime, and providing reparation.

Appointed to the Australian appellate court in 2006, Justice Neave is recognized throughout the world. Her accomplishments and awards include co-writing the first Australian casebook about property law and being one of the first three women in Australia to be appointed to a chair in law. She has held leadership positions at various law schools in Australia and is a past chair of the Victorian Law Reform Commission. For her contributions to law reform, she was named an officer in the Order of Australia, the country's pre-eminent way to recognize citizens and others for achievement and meritorious service.

Next week, a group of Ukraine judges will visit with Indiana's justices as part of an ongoing cultural exchange that Chief Justice Shepard created; this is the fourth consecutive year that Ukraine judges have come to Indiana.