Academic, lawyer and writer, Larissa Behrendt graduated from Harvard Law School with a doctorate in 1998. Her thesis was later published as the book Achieving Social Justice : Indigenous Rights and Australia's Future ( 2003).
Since 2001 Behrendt has been Professor of Law and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney and has published extensively on property law, Indigenous rights, dispute resolution and Aboriginal women's issues. In 2002 she won the David Unaipon Award for her novel Home.

In 2003 she was awarded, with Marcia Langton (q.v.), the Neville Bonner Indigenous University Teacher of the Year Award. Behrendt has been a director of Ngiya, National Institute of Indigenous Law, Policy and Practice, a council member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, a Judicial Member of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, Equal Opportunity Division and the Alternate Chair of the Serious Offenders Review Board. She has also been a Board Member of the Museum of Contemporary Art and a Director of the Sydney Writers' Festival and the Bangarra Dance Theatre.