Family Law in the spotlight
The Dickson Poon School of Law has recently hosted a number of Family Law events.
On 6- 8 July King’s Waterloo Campus was home to Culture, Dispute Resolution and the Modernised Family convened by Professor Marilyn Freeman, Co-Director of the International Centre for Family Law, Policy and Practice. Speakers came from all over the world to take part and included both academics and practitioners as well as representatives from many other disciplines. Diana Bryant, Chief Justice of the Australian Family Court attended and was a member of the conference drafting committee. Baroness Hale of Richmond, Visiting Professor at King's, kindly chaired a plenary session at which Professor Stephen Gilmore presented a paper critiquing legal method in family law. In addition, her Ladyship hosted a reception at the House of Lords as part of the conference. Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division of the High Court, delivered an address during the conference dinner at the Oxford and Cambridge Club.
The conference saw over 200 delegates attend a range of keynotes and panel sessions on topics such as: ‘Current Trends in UK Surrogacy Law and the Case For Reform’; ‘Culture, Same-Sex Couples and Dispute Resolution’; ‘The Best Interests of Abducted Children: How Do Courts Know, Or Do They?’.
See the full programme
Read a report of the conference on law firm Kingsley Napley’s blog.
On 11 and 12 July, King’s hosted with colleagues from the Australian National University (ANU) an international workshop entitled Current Directions in Shared Parenting Research. This two-day workshop, organised by Australian Research Council Future Fellow Dr Bruce Smyth, ANU, with Professor Stephen Gilmore (King’s), brought together scholars from Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK to explore the issue of shared parenting, with a focus on research translation and cross-national comparisons. In addition, Professors Karen Broadhurst and Judith Harwin, of Lancaster University, presented, and sought feedback from participants on, their work to date on producing a family justice observatory in England and Wales to assist the development of evidence-based family law, policy and practice. The two days’ proceedings were summed up, and reflections offered, by the distinguished researcher, Professor Bryan Rodgers, Professor of Family Health & Wellbeing at ANU.
Professor Gilmore commented, ‘It was a great privilege to host this event at King’s, which revealed (at least for me) new insights concerning shared parenting research and its future possible directions; Bruce Smyth deserves all the credit for bringing together such a range of scholars working in this area.’