Kit Barker joined the TC Beirne School of Law in 2006. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated with first class honours (in 1988) and subsequently completed the BCL (with distinction) in 1991. He was admitted to the Middle Temple Inn of Court as a Harmsworth Scholar and to the Bar of England and Wales in 1990. He is interested in private law as a whole, but specialises in the law of torts and unjust enrichment law and the law's doctrine, philosophical foundations and remedies. More recently, his work has explored the interface between private law and public law and public policy, with a focus on the tortious liability of government, misfeasance in public office and the use of private enforcement techniques in public law. He is a former Associate Dean (Research) at the TC Beirne School of Law and an assistant editor of the Torts Law Journal. He is co-author of three books - Unjust Enrichment (3rd ed, Sydney, Lexis Nexis, Butterworths, 2024, 1st ed, 2008), The Law of Torts in Australia (5th ed, 2011, OUP) and Remedies: Commentary and Materials (Thomson, 2015). He is also an editor and contributor to six essay collections: Life and Death in Private Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2024), Private Law: Key Encounters with Public Law (Cambridge University Press, 2013), The Law of Misstatements (Hart Publishing, 2015); Private Law and Power (Hart Publishing, 2017) ; Private Law in the Twenty-First Century (Hart Publishing, 2017); Apportionment in Private Law (Hart Publishing, 2018) and the Research Handbook on Unjust Enrichment and Restitution (Edward Elgar, 2020).
He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and current director of the Australian Centre of Private Law at the TC Beirne School of Law.
Professor Rick Bigwood’s principal teaching and research interests lie in the areas of contract and property law. He was formerly a Senior Solicitor and Acting Principal Solicitor with the Federal Attorney-General's Department in Canberra (Office of Commercial Law). Before joining TC Beirne School of Law, Professor Bigwood taught at Bond University for five years, and he was on the Auckland Law Faculty for 16 years before that, where he was also the Director of the Research Centre for Business Law. He has published widely in leading international journals on subjects within contract, equity and property law, and he has been a keynote speaker at international conferences on contract law. His publications include the following books: Legal Method in New Zealand (Butterworths, 2001); Exploitative Contracts (Oxford University Press, 2003) (awarded the JF Northey Memorial Book Award for 2003); The Statute: Making and Meaning (LexisNexis, 2004); Public Interest Litigation: The New Zealand Experience in International Perspective (LexisNexis, 2006); The Permanent New Zealand Court of Appeal: Essays on the First 50 Years (Hart Publishing, 2009); Contract as Assumption: Essays on a Theme (by Brian Coote) (Hart Publishing, 2010); The Law of Remedies: New Directions in the Common Law (Irwin Law, 2010) (with Jeff Berryman); and Cheshire & Fifoot, Law of Contract (10th Australian edition, 2012) (with Nick Seddon). Professor Bigwood was formerly the General Editor of the New Zealand Universities Law Review, and was Editor of the New Zealand Law Review 2002-2008. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of the New Zealand Universities Law Review and the Journal of Contract Law. Professor Bigwood has received a number of awards, prizes and honours for his teaching at various tertiary educational institutions, in a variety of countries, including a National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2006 (New Zealand).
Dr Vicky Comino is a Senior Lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law at The University of Queensland. Dr Comino's main research area is corporate law, and in particular the regulation of corporate misconduct. Before commencing an academic career, she practised as a solicitor working at a top tier law firm in the fields of corporate law, leasing, commercial and residential conveyancing, strata development, securities and opinion work. Over the years, Dr Comino has worked voluntarily for Legal Aid, South Brisbane Immigration & Community Legal Service, Women's Equal Opportunity (WEO) and Justice and the Law Society (JATL) (UQ). She has also served on numerous committees, most recently as the chair of a major Queensland Law Society accreditation committee for the accreditation of lawyers as Business Law Specialists. Dr Comino's recent articles have addressed important topics in the corporations law area. Those topics include the difficulties facing the use of civil penalties by calling for Parliament to pass legislation to resolve procedural obstacles, the adequacy of ASIC's 'tool-kit' to deal with corporate and financial wrongdoing, including the deployment of 'new' enforcement tools, such as enforceable undertakings and the possibilities and limits of the use of 'corporate culture' as a regulatory mechanism. Her 2015 monograph Australia's "Company Law Watchdog" – ASIC and Corporate Regulation, which focuses on exploring how, and to what extent, a public authority like ASIC can achieve more effective regulation certainly comes at a time when ASIC's performance is increasingly under the microscope. This is in view of its mixed record of success in some highly publicised cases and a seemingly endless procession of corporate and financial scandals, such as those that engulfed the major Australian banks, prompting not only a number of parliamentary inquiries into ASIC's performance and capabilities, but the establishment of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. Her book also consolidates her position as a leading Australian researcher on corporate regulation, with her work cited in the Final Report of the Banking Royal Commission and reports of the Australian Law Reform Commission on Corporate Criminal Responsibility. Dr Comino's research has global relevance and she has extended her work beyond Australia to evaluate international developments, especially in the US and the UK. She is examining the different responses of regulators to the dilemmas presented by policing corporate and securities violations in the aftermath of, and since, the GFC to try to resolve the issue of how policy-makers and regulators should deal with corporate wrongdoing more effectively in the future. She also travelled to the UK in 2018 after being awarded a Liberty Fellowship from the University of Leeds to undertake collaborative work comparing corporate regulation there and in Australia. Dr Comino holds the degrees of BA, LLB (Hons), LLM and PhD (UQ), and is a Fellow of the Australian Centre for Private Law (UQ).
I am a Lecturer in the TC Beirne School of Law. I teach Trusts and Equity, although I am interested in all areas of private law and private law theory.
My PhD research evaluated the High Court's reliance on the principle of 'coherence' in private law adjudication. Parts of this research have been published in leading journals, such as the Melbourne University Law Review and the University of Toronto Law Journal.
Professor Ross Grantham’s principal research interests are in the fields of corporate governance and the private law. He has published extensively in the area of the duties of company directors, as well as on matters dealing with the theoretical nature of the company and the implications of this nature for the integration of the company as a juristic entity into the general legal system. He has also published extensively on developments in the law of unjust enriched and restitution, particularly the interface between restitution and the law of property, and on the theoretical and philosophical basis of the private law.
In addition to his many articles in leading international journals, Professor Grantham is the author of a number of monographs and casebooks, and he has edited a number of collections of essays. Professor Grantham is a member of the editorial boards of a number of leading international journals.
Professor Grantham holds degrees from Oxford University, the University of Auckland and the University of Queensland, and has held senior management positions at both the University of Auckland and the University of Queensland.
Professor Paul Harpur OAM (introductory video) aims to create a world which is more inclusive for all. He advances his vision through advancing human rights and helping universities become disability champions of change. Professor Harpur is an nationally and internationally acclaimed legal scholar, advocate and director. He is currently Affiliated with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, and an International Distinguished Fellow with the Burton Blatt Institute, College of Law, Syracuse University, New York.
He is a former Fulbrighter, having been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Future Scholarship entitled "Universally Designed for Whom? Disability, the Law and Practice of Expanding the "Normal User".
In2021 Professor Harpur was awarded a 4 year Future Fellowship, commencing in 2022, with the Australian Research Council entitled “Normalizing Ability Diversity through Career Transitions: Disability at Work”. Professor Harpur is using his Future Fellowship to support the higher education sector to become champions of disability inclusion.
Professor Harpur is involved in higher education reforms, including serving during 2023 on the Federal Education Minister's Universities Accord Ministerial Reference Group. He also serves on the Higher Education Standards Panel (HESP), which is a statutory body under Part 9 of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 (Cth). The HESP is charged to advise and make recommendations to the Minister and to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) on the Higher Education Standards Framework and to TEQSA on matters including TEQSA’ strategic objectives, corporate plan, performance against that plan, regulatory and reform agenda. From 2024 Professor Harpur serves on the Advisory Board for the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success, formerly the National Center for Student Equity in Higher Education.
Professor Harpur is also an ambassador for the Australian Human Rights IncludeAbility Network. This network has major Australian employers who are actively seeking to champion disability inclusion. With the support of Vice-Chancellor Debbie Terry and Deputy Provost Pauline Ford the university continues as the first founding member from the higher education sector. IncludeAbility is an initiative of the Australian Human Rights Commission (the Commission) developed to increase meaningful employment opportunities for people with disability, and to close the gap in workforce participation between people with disability and people without disability.
In 2019 he was named a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Professor Harpur chairs the UQ Disability Inclusion Group, which supports the university in its implementation of the UQ Disability Action Plan. He also sits on the Academic Board, the University Senate's sub-committee focusing on inclusion, and on the Senate Committee for Equity Diversity and Inclusion.
Professor Harpur has published monographs with Cambridge University Press. 'His monograph, Discrimination, Copyright and Equality: Opening the E-Book for the Print Disabled (2017), analyses the interaction between anti-discrimination and copyright laws, and his Ableism at Work, Disablement and Hierarchies of Impairment 2019, analyses disability inequalities
at work in several jurisdictions. Professor Harpur has also led a range of projects, including an International Labour Organization project assessing labour rights in the South Pacific, including a particular focus on the rights of persons with disabilities.
Professor Harpur is a TEDx Speaker, ‘Universities as Disability Champions of Change’, and has given numerous keynotes and speeches, including addressing the International Labour Organization in
Geneva.
Outside the law, Professor Harpur has been a professional athlete with a disability, competing in the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Paralympics, the 2002 Manchester and 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and a range of other World Titles and international competitions.
In the 2024 Australia Day Honours, Professor Harpur was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia by the Governor General of Australia (OAM). The citation for his OAM is “for service to people with disability”.
Professor Harpur is the 2022 Blind Australian of the Year.The Blind Australian of the Year Award recognises and celebrates “Blind Australians, who by example- inspire others to excellence, by action, improve Australian life.”
He received the 2021 BEL Employee Excellence Award in Research for excellence in Cross-Faculty Research.
The UQ Disability Inclusion Group, which he chairs, was recognised as Champions for Change in recognition of the tireless work they do to improve inclusion and access to higher education” by the Nationa
l Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education& Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Australasia.
In the Australian HR Awards, Excellence Awardees 2021, the University of Queensland was awarded the “BEST Workplace Diversity & Inclusion Program”.Dr Harpur is part of this large team including, Al Jury, Provost Professor Aidan Byrne, Angie Sturrock, Professor DVCR Bronwyn Harch (FTSE, FAQ), Caitlin Bennett, Celina Campas, Dr Deanne (Dee) Gibbon CSC OAM, Vice Chancellor Professor Debbie Terry, Dr Dino Willox, Elodie Tischer, Jordan Akhurst, Kriti Garg, Monika Andersen, Neena Mitter, Nicole Barton, Rob Moffatt, Tanya Lutvey, and Taylor Bamin.
The University of Queensland 2019 Excellence Award, received the Community, diversity and inclusion Award, for the team, the University of Queensland Disability Inclusion Group, chaired by Professor Harpur:
“Formed in 2017, UQ's Disability Inclusion Group (DIG) provides outstanding leadership and advocacy for students/staff with disability. The Group has delivered numerous programs and actions to dismantle physical, technological and cultural barriers impacting students and staff with disability, to enable full access to UQ life. The DIG is a unique operating model within Higher Education, in that it brings stakeholders, staff and students with disability together in a cohesive way, to champion and progress disability inclusion outcomes. The Disability Action Plan developed by DIG members in 2018 is considered 'industry leading', and is receiving considerable external interest. The DIG works across a range of area in support of inclusion, including law, academia, information technology, student and staff support, governance, property and facilities and library services.”
The University of Queensland 2019 Excellence Award, received commendation in the Community, diversity and inclusion category as an individual:
“Dr Harpur has been championing the rights of persons with disabilities from the age of 14, when a train accident caused him to become blind. The problems he had in accessing print textbooks inspired a research and advocacy agenda that has resulted in a substantial body of scholarship in Australia and internationally, and a drive to transform how UQ provides access to its students and community. His work has led to the formation of a UQ-wide body monitoring and coordinating disability inclusion, which he now chairs, and progress in how various other groups across the University manage disability digital inclusion.”
Professor Harpur was recognised to receive a 2019 Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, as part of the Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT) program.Professor Harpur’s citation is“for outstanding leadership in translating disability strategy into a vision of ability equality and core university business.”.
of Queensland for the 2019 Australian Awards for University Teaching. These Universities Australia awards celebrate and reward excellence in university teaching.
Professor Harpur is often in the media and engaged with public discourse. See for example the Federal Education Minister, the Hon Jason Clare speaking on the life of Professor Harpur during the Minister’s speech at the Australian Parliament House at the Australian-American Fulbright Commission Gala Presentation Dinner 2022.
Professor Harpur's publications and speeches can be found on his Google Scholar page. Further information can be found on his Linkedin page.
Dr Radha Ivory is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Queensland, Australia (UQ), where she teaches company law and researches the transnational regulation of corruption and corporate crime.
Her work explores the interlocking domestic and international laws that aim to govern powerful economic and political actors, from politically exposed persons to multinational enterprises. Radha asks what these laws require of whom; how they develop and change across borders; and how we can better appraise and design them to manage their unintended consequences. Her approach is interdisciplinary, using doctrinal legal and socio-legal methodologies, as well as insights from economics, sociology, and international relations. Current projects focus on the human rights impacts of asset recovery laws, the reform of transnational anticorruption and corporate criminal laws, and the securitisation of integrity regulations (corporate ‘lawfare’).
Radha’s research has appeared in leading law journals (International & Comparative Law Quarterly, London Review of International Law, UNSW Law Journal) and important edited collections (e.g., Krieger/Peters/Kreuzer, Due Diligence in the International Legal Order, Oxford University Press; Aaronson/Shaffer, Transnational Legal Ordering of Criminal Justice, Cambridge University Press). Her sole-authored book, Corruption, Asset Recovery, and the Protection of Property in Public International Law: The Human Rights of Bad Guys was published by Cambridge University Press and launched by former Australian federal treasurer, The Hon. Peter Costello AC. Her work with Pieth on corporate criminal liability is also widely cited. A regular speaker at international conferences and meetings, Radha has been a visitor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and has delivered presentations at the University of Melbourne, the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), and the University of Bergen.
Radha’s scholarship is informed by her past and ongoing roles in the international and private sectors. She commenced her career at Freehills (now Herbert Smith Freehills) in Brisbane, Australia, before joining an NGO self-governance and compliance initiative, Building Safer Organisations in Geneva, Switzerland. Prior to commencing at UQ, Radha was a Senior Expert, Collective Action and Compliance, at the Basel Institute on Governance, Switzerland. In that role, she supported Ukraine and Colombia in anticorruption project design and implementation. During her PhD studies, Radha held research roles in the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) and the University of Basel. Radha currently consults to the World Bank and has previously been engaged by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. She is on the Advisory Board of the Bribery Prevention Network, Australia.
Radha was awarded a PhD (summa cum laude) from the University of Basel, and Bachelors of Arts (International Relations and German) and Laws (Hons I) from UQ.
Dr Barbora Jedlickova joined the TC Beirne School of Law as an Associate Lecturer in 2011. She specialises in competition law, with principle research interests in competition-law theories, competition law in the digital economy and comparative competition law. Her research has focused on various topics, including cartels, vertical restraints, bargaining power, and economic and jurisprudential theories and arguments in competition law. Her research also includes the analysis of specific markets with distinctive issues, such the grocery retail market, the pharmaceutical market and the telecommunications market. She has published both internationally and nationally. Her publications include a research monograph Resale Price Maintenance and Vertical Territorial Restrictions: Theory and Practice in EU Competition Law and US Antitrust Law published by Edward Elgar Publishing.
Dr Jedlickova's engagement and research are both nationally and internationally orientated. She is a member of the Competition and Consumer Committee of the Law Council of Australia. She has visited several European and US institutions as a visiting scholar, including the University of Iowa, Boston University and the Court of Justice of the European Union. She is a member of a number of national and international associations. She has also been an active member of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) and has been involved in several international LIDC projects. Together with 17 senior competition-law experts, Dr Jedlickova has been working towards establishing LIDC Australia and New Zealand, the first LIDC group in Australia and New Zealand linked to international LIDC.
Dr Jedlickova has served as an Editor of the Oceania Column of Competition Policy International (‘CPI’) and as a General Editor of the LAWASIA Journal. Dr Jedlickova is a Fellow of the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law (CPILC) and a Fellow of the Australian Centre for Private Law at the TC Beirne School of Law.
Dr Jedlickova holds degrees from the University of Glasgow in the UK (PhD in Law, 2012; and LL.M. with Commendation in International Competition Law and Policy, 2007) and from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic (2004). Prior to her academic career, she worked as a Lawyer in the Czech Republic and as a Contracts Officer/Assistant Contracts Manager at both the University of St Andrews and the University of Glasgow in the UK. In 2009, she was a trainee (a blue-book 'stagiaire') of DG Competition at the European Commission in Brussels.
The law of politics, in particular electoral law, is Professor Graeme Orr's primary research expertise. He has authored The Law of Politics (1st edn 2010, 2nd edn 2019) and Ritual and Rhythm in Electoral Systems (2015), co-authored The Law of Deliberative Democracy (2016), co-edited Realising Democracy (2003), Electoral Democracy: Australian Prospects (2011) and The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (2018) and edited 3 symposia on the law of politics. His doctoral thesis explored the nature and regulation of electoral bribery. In the field of the law of politics, he does consultancy and pro bono work, and regular media commentary. Graeme has published over 100 commentary pieces in both the traditional press and online outlets.
Graeme has also published extensively in labour law, the law of negligence and on issues of language and law. Currently he is the legal adviser on the NSW Electoral Commission’s iVote panel and was recently part of the Australian Republican Movement’s Constitutional Advisory Board that drafted a model for an elected Head of State.
An Associate to two judges in the Federal Court of Australia and solicitor of the Queensland Supreme Court, prior to joining UQ Graeme was also an Associate Professor at Griffith University, where he taught for 13 years. In recent times he has been international editor of the Election Law Journal and board member of the Australian Journal of Labour Law. He was formerly managing editor of the Griffith Law Review, columnist with the Alternative Law Journal on sport's links to law, and employment law columnist with the Australian Journal of Administrative Law. He currently authors the entry on Australia for The Annual Register, a 257 year old almanac of world affairs.
He has been elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (2014) and the Australian Academy of Social Sciences (2020).
Dr Thea Voogt is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and the Director of Business Law.
She specialises in income tax law, agriculture tax policy tools, the impact of climate change on the financial fortitude of farming families, corporate governance and business structures.
Thea leverages her significant business experience in senior executive roles and her background as a chartered accountant in industry projects. She holds a Doctorate in Financial Management and Master of International Commercial Law (UQ).
Thea is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an award-winning law teacher. She is the 2017 recipient of the prestigious UQ Business, Economics & Law Faculty Teaching Award. She also received the 2017 Inspired me to learn Award for Teaching Excellence in an undergraduate compulsory course, and the 2016 Award for Teaching Excellence in an undergraduate compulsory course from the UQ School of Law.
Prior to joining UQ, Thea was the CEO (Principal Officer) of the superannuation funds of the University of Johannesburg, a Professor in Accounting and managed large tenders for this institution. Over the course of her career in South Africa, she was closely involved with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants as sought-after speaker, researcher and umpire for the national qualifying exams for chartered accountants. Thea also held a Ministerial appointment to the Board of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).
