Prior to her appointment to the District Court, Judge Hopkins worked for the ALS in various positions over a 25 year period, including the Principal Solicitor of Justice Projects, Policy and Practice. An accredited specialist in criminal law, she lectured in the criminal process at the University of NSW and was the founder and co-Chair of Just Reinvest NSW. She worked with the Bourke community from 2012 on the Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Project, which was the recipient of the 2015 National Rural Law and Justice Award, with Just Reinvest NSW receiving the 2019 HESTA Community Organisation Award and 2019 Australian Human Rights Commission Community Organisation Award.
In her role at the ALS, she co-chaired the Closing the Gap Justice Targets Officer Level Working Group and played a lead role in the design and implementation of the NSW program of work.
Throughout her career she served on numerous committees including the NSW Bar Association’s Joint Working Party on the Over-representation of Indigenous People in the NSW Criminal Justice System, the Criminal Law Committee of the Law Society of NSW, the Steering Committee for the Red Cross Vulnerability Report, and as Vice President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties. In 2017 she was named the Community Lawyer of the Year by the Women Lawyers’ Association of NSW.
Judge Hopkins is one of four judges presiding in matters in the Walama List.