Associate Professor Francesca Bartlett

Associate Professor

School of Law
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
f.bartlett@law.uq.edu.au
+61 7 334 67526

Overview

Associate Professor Francesca Bartlett lectures in Ethics and the Legal Profession and Contract Law. She is the Director of Teaching and Learning at the School of Law. She is a Fellow of the Centre for Public, Comparative and International Law and researches in the area of lawyers' ethics and practice, access to justice and women and the law. She was a CI on the Australian Feminist Judgments Project funded by the Australian Research Council under a Discovery Project Grant. She is undertaking a number of projects relating to lawyers working across Australia including around family violence, and how technology impacts upon access to justice and ethics in the legal profession. She has led a project concerning technology and access to justice in the legal assistance sector funded under an AIBE Applied Research Fund grant and was a CI on a project funded by the Queensland Law Society concerning disruption to and innovation by small law firms across Queensland. Francesca was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre on the Legal Profession at Stanford University in November 2018.

She is a member of the Queensland Law Society Ethics Committee and is the Vice President of the International Association of Legal Ethics. Francesca is an Academic Member of the School's Pro Bono Centre Advisory Board. Before joining the Law School, she practiced for a number of years as a commercial solicitor at a national law firm in Melbourne and Brisbane. Prior to embarking on her legal career, Francesca completed a PhD in English which concerned the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families.

Research Interests

  • Socio-legal research into legal professionalism
  • Women and the Law
  • Feminist jurisprudence
  • Women and the judiciary
  • Pro bono and cause lawyering
  • Lawyers' ethics

Research Impacts

Dr Bartlett's research has contributed to debates surrounding the regulation of the legal profession in a number of ways. For instance, she has conducted empirical research concerning women lawyers and judges and the barriers they face to achieving 'success' in law. Some of this research is cited on the Law Council of Australia's website and has been considered by the Council of Law Deans. She has also provided expert advice to an Australian Law Reform Council Inquiry, including drafting a background paper, concerning judicial independence and ethics. She was invited to join the Queensland Law Society’s Ethics Committee based on her research around lawyers’ ethics. In this role she regularly participates in production of professional ethics education and guidance as well as policy advice. She regularly provides education to the legal sector such as a recent webinar hosted by the Community Legal Centres Queenland reporting on her research concerning best practice for lawyers working in domestic and family violence contexts. Her recent project collaborating with academics from a regional university resulted in a report delivered to the Queensland Law Society on disruption to legal practice.

Qualifications

  • Masters (Coursework) of Juris Doctor, University of Melbourne
  • Doctor of Philosophy, La Trobe University
  • Bachelor of Arts, La Trobe University

Publications

  • Bartlett, Francesca and Corrin, Jennifer Clare (2016). Representative or the Same? Representative rule and class actions in Queensland and Western Australia. Civil Justice Quarterly, 35 (1), 41-60.

  • Bartlett, Francesca (2014). Formal equality and third party interests in the family home. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 207-211) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

  • Douglas, Heather Anne, Bartlett, Francesca, Luker, Trish and Hunter, Rosemary (2014). Reflections on rewriting the law. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 19-40) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

View all Publications

Supervision

View all Supervision

Available Projects

  • Potential topics available include:

    • Technology and ethical legal practise;
    • The role of the lawyer in access to justice and efficient administration of the courts
    • Prosecutorial ethics and judicial ethics;
    • Regulation of the legal profession including admission and disciplinary law and debates about professionalism
    • Teaching lawyers’ ethics and legal education.

    For further information contact Dr Francesca Bartlett, e: f.bartlett@law.uq.edu.au

  • Potential topics available include:

    1. Gender and judging – does diversity matter? What is the scope for feminist judging?
    2. Questions of bias and gendered approaches to the law
    3. Advocating ‘other’ interests
    4. Equality of representation within the legal profession

    For further information contact Dr Francesca Bartlett, e: f.bartlett@law.uq.edu.au

View all Available Projects

Publications

Featured Publications

  • Bartlett, Francesca and Corrin, Jennifer Clare (2016). Representative or the Same? Representative rule and class actions in Queensland and Western Australia. Civil Justice Quarterly, 35 (1), 41-60.

  • Bartlett, Francesca (2014). Formal equality and third party interests in the family home. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 207-211) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

  • Douglas, Heather Anne, Bartlett, Francesca, Luker, Trish and Hunter, Rosemary (2014). Reflections on rewriting the law. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 19-40) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

Book

Book Chapter

  • Bartlett, Francesca and Haller, Linda (2017). Australia: legal services regulation in Australia - Innovative co-regulation. International perspectives on the regulation of lawyers and legal services. (pp. 161-184) edited by Andrew Boon. London, United Kingdom: Hart.

  • Bartlett, Francesca (2017). Reforming Australian litigation lawyers: educational impacts of civil procedural laws and judicial activism. Private law in the twenty-first century. (pp. 527-546) edited by Kit Barker, Ross Grantham and Karen Fairweather. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing. doi: 10.5040/9781509908615.ch-025

  • Douglas, Heather and Bartlett, Francesca (2016). Practice and persuasion: women, feminism and judicial diversity. Judicial independence in Australia: contemporary challenges, future directions. (pp. 76-88) edited by Rebecca Ananian-Welsh and Jonathan Crowe. Sydney, Australia: Federation Press.

  • Bartlett, Francesca (2014). Formal equality and third party interests in the family home. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 207-211) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

  • Douglas, Heather Anne, Bartlett, Francesca, Luker, Trish and Hunter, Rosemary (2014). Introduction: Righting Australian Law. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 1-18) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

  • Bartlett, Francesca (2014). Louth v Diprose 175 CLR 621. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 196-206) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

  • Douglas, Heather Anne, Bartlett, Francesca, Luker, Trish and Hunter, Rosemary (2014). Reflections on rewriting the law. Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law. (pp. 19-40) edited by Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

  • Robertson, Michael, Corbin, Lillian, Tranter, Kieran and Bartlett, Francesca (2011). Introduction. The ethics project in legal education. (pp. 1-8) edited by Michael Robertson, Lillian Corbin, Kieran Tranter and Francesca Bartlett. Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge.

  • Bartlett, Francesca, Mortensen, Reid and Tranter, Kieran (2011). Introduction. Alternative perspectives on lawyers and legal ethics: Reimagining the profession. (pp. 1-10) edited by Francesca Bartlett, Reid Mortensen and Kieran Tranter. Abingdon Oxon, U.K. ; New York, U.S.A.: RoutledgeAbingdon.

  • Tranter, Kieran, Bartlett, Francesca, Corbin, Lillian, Mortensen, Reid and Robertson, Mike (2010). Introduction : Reaffirming legal ethics. Reaffirming Legal Ethics: Taking Stock and New Ideas. (pp. 1-11) edited by Kieran Tranter, Francesca Bartlett, Lillian Corbin, Michael Robertson and Reid Mortensen. London, Engalnd, U.K.: Routledge.

  • Bartlett, Francesca (1999). Assimilation and women's work. Unmasking whiteness: race relations and reconciliation. (pp. 52-67) edited by Belinda McKay. Brisbane, Australia: Griffith University Publications.

Journal Article

Conference Publication

Other Outputs

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Master Philosophy — Associate Advisor

    Other advisors:

Completed Supervision

Possible Research Projects

Note for students: The possible research projects listed on this page may not be comprehensive or up to date. Always feel free to contact the staff for more information, and also with your own research ideas.

  • Potential topics available include:

    • Technology and ethical legal practise;
    • The role of the lawyer in access to justice and efficient administration of the courts
    • Prosecutorial ethics and judicial ethics;
    • Regulation of the legal profession including admission and disciplinary law and debates about professionalism
    • Teaching lawyers’ ethics and legal education.

    For further information contact Dr Francesca Bartlett, e: f.bartlett@law.uq.edu.au

  • Potential topics available include:

    1. Gender and judging – does diversity matter? What is the scope for feminist judging?
    2. Questions of bias and gendered approaches to the law
    3. Advocating ‘other’ interests
    4. Equality of representation within the legal profession

    For further information contact Dr Francesca Bartlett, e: f.bartlett@law.uq.edu.au