Skip to menu Skip to content Skip to footer
Associate Professor Francesca Bartlett
Associate Professor

Francesca Bartlett

Email: 
Phone: 
+61 7 334 67526

Overview

Background

Associate Professor Francesca Bartlett lectures in Ethics and the Legal Profession and Family Law. She is the Deputy Dean of the Law School. 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 law and family violence, abuse of process and duty of competence, as well as legal professions in the Pacific. 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 the co-author (with Holmes) of textbook, Parker & Evans' Inside Legal Ethics in 2023 and forthcoming 2026. She also has an interest in clinical legal education and runs an international placement course funded by New Colombo Plan Mobility Grant funding.

She is a member of the Queensland Law Society Ethics Advsory 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, and has held a senior administrative position as Director of teaching and Learning in the Law School. 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.

Availability

Associate Professor Francesca Bartlett is:
Available for supervision

Qualifications

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

Research interests

  • Socio-legal research into legal professionalism

    I conduct qualitative research about the practises and regulatory environment, and ethical values, of the legal profession and judiciary. For instance, I have undertaken funded projects considering judicial attitudes to gender, the legal profession's adaptability to technology and best practises in lawyering in relation to family violence. My current collaborations involve interdisciplinary explorations of lawyers ethics with academics from philosophy and medicine, and implications of procedures addressing systems abuse in family law.

  • Women and the Law

    My work explores how women are impacted by law, including working in the law. My current work explores gender in legal education and family violence. In my recent work I am developing a feminist ethical framework for legal practice.

  • Lawyers' ethics

    My work addresses how the legal profession develops and regulates how lawyers and the judiciary must or should practise. For instance, my scholarship has examined ethics conduct codes, professional discipline and entry controls for lawyers. My work also considers the impact of choices lawyers make about who to represent and how they undertake legal representation.

  • Family Law

    My work explores topics in family law including family violence and the way the law addresses systems abuse.

Research impacts

Associate Professor 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. This research is cited on the Law Council of Australia's website and has been considered by the Council of Law Deans. Her work in the feminist judgments project was read and reviewed by sitting judges and inspired other local and international feminist judgments projects. 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 influencing legal practitioners across the state. She regularly provides education to the legal sector such as a webinar hosted by the Community Legal Centres Queensland reporting on her research concerning best practice for lawyers working in domestic and family violence contexts. Her project collaborating with academics from a regional university resulted in a report delivered to the Queensland Law Society on disruption to legal practice which informs its policy formation around the changing landscape of the profession.

Works

Search Professor Francesca Bartlett’s works on UQ eSpace

87 works between 1998 and 2026

81 - 87 of 87 works

2007

Journal Article

Changing law: rights, regulation and reconciliation

Bartlett, Francesca (2007). Changing law: rights, regulation and reconciliation. Griffith Law Review, 16 (1), 289-293. doi: 10.1080/10383441.2007.10854591

Changing law: rights, regulation and reconciliation

2007

Journal Article

Raising the bar: legal profession in East Asia

Bartlett, Francesca (2007). Raising the bar: legal profession in East Asia. Lawasia Journal, 217-224.

Raising the bar: legal profession in East Asia

2003

Journal Article

Settlements residue auctions in the Australian national electricity market

Bartlett, Francesca (2003). Settlements residue auctions in the Australian national electricity market. International Energy Law and Taxation Review

Settlements residue auctions in the Australian national electricity market

1999

Book Chapter

Assimilation and women's work

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.

Assimilation and women's work

1999

Journal Article

Speaking her language - a report on a women's seminar

Bartlett, Francesca (1999). Speaking her language - a report on a women's seminar. Migration Action, 21

Speaking her language - a report on a women's seminar

1999

Journal Article

Clean, white girls: assimilation and women's work

Bartlett, Francesca (1999). Clean, white girls: assimilation and women's work. Hecate, 25 (1), 10-38.

Clean, white girls: assimilation and women's work

1998

Journal Article

Aboriginal resistance literature: life stories, governmentality and collectivity

Bartlett, Francesca (1998). Aboriginal resistance literature: life stories, governmentality and collectivity. UTS Review, 4

Aboriginal resistance literature: life stories, governmentality and collectivity

Funding

Past funding

  • 2012 - 2014
    Australian Feminist Judgments Project: Jurisprudence as Praxis
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2006 - 2008
    Women in Court: Equal Opportunity Briefing and the Appointment of Women to the Judiciary
    UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund
    Open grant

Supervision

Availability

Associate Professor Francesca Bartlett is:
Available for supervision

Looking for a supervisor? Read our advice on how to choose a supervisor.

Available projects

  • Lawyer’s ethics and professional standards

    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

  • Gender and ‘Others’ doing the law

    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

  • Family law and family lawyers

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

Supervision history

Current supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Artificially Intelligent Justice: Assessing the Efficacy of Judge AI Through a Procedural Justice Lens

    Principal Advisor

    Other advisors: Professor John Swinson

  • Doctor Philosophy

    The Real Housewives of Academia: Working Class Women's Labour and Higher Education through the 21st Century

    Associate Advisor

    Other advisors: Associate Professor Sharlene Leroy-Dyer

  • Master Philosophy

    The End of Tradition? Legal Education and the Search for Purpose in an AI-Driven World

    Associate Advisor

    Other advisors: Professor Ross Grantham

Completed supervision

Media

Enquiries

For media enquiries about Associate Professor Francesca Bartlett's areas of expertise, story ideas and help finding experts, contact our Media team:

communications@uq.edu.au