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Gillian Douglas

Professor Gillian Douglas

Professor of Law

  • Emeritus Executive Dean, The Dickson Poon School of Law

Research interests

  • Law

Biography

Gillian Douglas has an LLB from Manchester University and gained an LLM at the London School of Economics. In 2011 she was awarded the degree of LLD (Doctor of Laws) by Cardiff University. She has taught at the University of Bristol, the National University of Singapore and Cardiff University, where she served as Head of the School between 2005 – 2010. She is a past Secretary-General of the International Society of Family Law.Between 2010-2014, she was Chair of the Law Sub-Panel for REF 2014 and has served as a member of the AHRC's Peer Review College and the Leverhulme Trust Research Awards Advisory Committee. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017 and an Honorary Bencher of Gray's Inn in 2018. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, the Learned Society of Wales and the Academy of Social Sciences.

Research interests

Professor Douglas researches in family law, focusing on the relationship between law and social change across the family life-course. Her work ranges from examining access to treatment for assisted reproduction through to public attitudes to inheritance law and the courts' approach to challenges to wills. She has conducted a number of empirical studies which have focused on the impact of relationship breakdown on family members, including on the relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren and on how children’s views can be taken into account when courts are dealing with parental disputes. She has recently completed a study funded by a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship on obligation and commitment in family law. She is a case reports editor for the leading practitioner journal, Family Law and is a co-editor of Child and Family Law Quarterly. 

Selected publications 

  • G Douglas, Obligation and Commitment in Family Law (Hart Publishing, 2018)
  • N Lowe and G Douglas, Bromley's Family Law (Oxford University Press, 2015, 11th edn)
  • G Douglas et al, ‘Enduring Love? Attitudes to Family and Inheritance Law in England and Wales (2011).

See Professor Douglas's full research profile on King's Research Portal. 

    News

    The Dickson Poon School of Law under Professor Gillian Douglas' leadership

    Professor Gillian Douglas, Executive Dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law, will retire at the end of this calendar year. During her tenure, the School has...

    Gillian Douglas image

    King's Alumna Appointed to the French Conseil d'État

    Professor Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson, a graduate of the King's-Sorbonne Anglo-French LLB programme has recently been appointed to the Conseil d'État in France.

    France & UK Flags

    State responsibility for modern slavery

    The Dickson Poon School of Law hosted an interdisciplinary workshop on November 16, 2018 to discuss avenues for accountability of states for modern slavery....

    The Dickson Poon School of Law

    Lady Hale opens lecture series marking 100 Years of Women in the Law

    The Dickson Poon School of Law welcomed Baroness Hale to King's on Wednesday 20 March to address the subject of 100 years of women in legal practice.

    Lady Hale

      News

      The Dickson Poon School of Law under Professor Gillian Douglas' leadership

      Professor Gillian Douglas, Executive Dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law, will retire at the end of this calendar year. During her tenure, the School has...

      Gillian Douglas image

      King's Alumna Appointed to the French Conseil d'État

      Professor Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson, a graduate of the King's-Sorbonne Anglo-French LLB programme has recently been appointed to the Conseil d'État in France.

      France & UK Flags

      State responsibility for modern slavery

      The Dickson Poon School of Law hosted an interdisciplinary workshop on November 16, 2018 to discuss avenues for accountability of states for modern slavery....

      The Dickson Poon School of Law

      Lady Hale opens lecture series marking 100 Years of Women in the Law

      The Dickson Poon School of Law welcomed Baroness Hale to King's on Wednesday 20 March to address the subject of 100 years of women in legal practice.

      Lady Hale