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Email

rm2198@cam.ac.uk

Education CV

2024 – present: PhD Candidate, St John’s College, University of Cambridge

  • Arts and Humanities Research Council – St John’s College Studentship

2021 – 2022: Bar Practice Course, University of Law (Outstanding)

  • Bar Course ‘Wilfred Watson’ scholarship awarded by The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn
  • Pupillage ‘Ann Goddard’ scholarship awarded by Gray’s Inn

2019 – 2020: LLM (Master of Laws), University College London (Distinction)

  • LLM Dean’s Scholarship

2016 – 2019: BA Jurisprudence, University College, University of Oxford (First Class)

  • Finalists’ Scholarship for First Class degree performance
  • Alan Urbach prize for best college performance in jurisprudence paper

I started my legal career as a research assistant at the Law Commission of England and Wales on their ‘Building Families Through Surrogacy’ project. I then qualified as a barrister, completed pupillage and practised at Coram Chambers, London, where I remain a door tenant. During my time at the Bar, I volunteered as a family law adviser with the UCL Legal Advice Clinic and supervised students providing legal advice at the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre. Coming from a state-educated, working class background in Northern England, I also have a keen interest in reducing educational inequality, and have previously worked and volunteered with organisations to raise the confidence and aspirations of underprivileged school children.

Fields of research

Family law, children's rights, human rights

 

Child welfare and respect for human rights: an analysis of changing judicial approaches to parent-child separation in England, 1991-present

Summary

If a child is at risk of harm in their parents’ care, how should a judge decide whether or not to separate them? Understanding and evaluating how judges make these decisions is important: they affect thousands of children every year, are made at all levels of the judiciary - including by legally untrained magistrates - and represent the sharpest state interferences in family life.

My PhD research explores how judicial approaches to this question have changed in the last 35 years due to the emerging human rights culture in the UK. I am looking into how judges have juggled two different value systems - child welfare and human rights - in reported case law, 1991 to present, and how the changed emphasis, away from just considering child welfare to also necessarily considering human rights, has impacted children. My research will appraise different approaches to judicial reasoning in these cases, and address unanswered but important questions about the relationship between child welfare and human rights in domestic law: for example, against what legitimate aim should parent-child separation be assessed? What are the respective roles of human rights and child welfare in decision-making? What should judges do if child welfare seems to require one thing and human rights another? Ultimately, my project aims to promote fuller, more transparent and more convincing judicial reasoning in cases involving possible parent-child separation. 

Supervisors

Professor Stephen Gilmore

Start Date

Oct 2024

Publications

 

Articles

"Keeping the magic alive: on remote hearings in the family court" Magistrate (Autumn 2024) 33-36

Co-Author/s:
Rob George
Citation:
Magistrate (Autumn 2024) 33-36
Published: Sep 2024

"Do we need physical family courts?" (2024) 46(1) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 59-81

Co-Author/s:
Rob George
Citation:
(2024) 46(1) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 59-81
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2024.2305028
Published: Jan 2024

"Upholding the dignity of gay men who are prospective parents: an analysis of adoption and surrogacy law" (2022) 44(3) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 306-328

Citation:
(2022) 44(3) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 306-328
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2022.2102764
Published: Aug 2022

Case Notes

The significance of section 20 after Re S and Re W [2023] EWCA Civ 1

Surrogacy breakdown, birth registration and Article 8: a missed opportunity in Strasbourg (2022) 44(4) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 529-532

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2022.2102758
Published: Aug 2022