Australian Women's Private Law Network

The AWPLN has been informed of the following event and encourages members and supporters to attend or submit a paper:

A second biennial colloquium at the University of Sydney Law School on Friday 16 August 2019 on Intersections in Private Law.

There is much to be explored and discussed in how different fields of private law interact with each other – contract law with tort or equitable principles, tort with un just enrichment, – and with other fields of law, such as public law, property law, company law or regulation.

Within just one field of private law, there are still overlaps and distinctions to be drawn (or, more controversially, eradicated)- for example, in tort law, trespass and nuisance, intentional wrongdoing and negligence, defamation and negligence, non-delegable duties and vicarious liability; non-delegable duties and strict liability; liability for physical damage compared with pure economic loss.  In looking at a broader interaction of remedies and obligations, how do causation and remoteness principles operate in different fields? How does vicarious liability interact with corporate law structures and principles?  What is the role of private law in an age of increasing public regulation? How do emerging technologies challenge the application of legal concepts in these fields?  These are just a few questions among many that could be explored.

The aim of this second biennial colloquium is to explore the boundaries, overlaps and complementary operation of fields of private law with each other and externally.  Speakers are free to propose papers on a wide range of topics related to this broad theme.  Papers may be completed or work-in-progress. Papers from early career researchers are warmly encouraged.

It is proposed that the colloquium will take place on Friday 16 August 2019, with a colloquium dinner that night and either a possible extension for papers the next day and /or a follow up teaching workshop the next morning, Saturday 17 August, for those interested in how the modern law curriculum should approach the interaction of obligations and remedies.

Confirmed speakers include:

• James Goudkamp, Oxford University
• Luke Rostill, Oxford University
• Nicole Moreham, Victoria University, NZ
• Jason Varuhas, Melbourne University
• Jason Harris, Sydney University
• Lee Aitken, Queensland University
• Natalie Silver, Sydney University
• Gemma Turton, Sydney University
• Ben Chen, Sydney University
• David Rolph, Sydney University
• John Eldridge, Sydney University
• Barbara McDonald, Sydney University

Please contact Barbara McDonald for more information: barbara.mcdonald@sydney.edu.au

We hope you all had a great start to 2019.

Publications

We’ve been informed of the following publications by Australian female scholars in the area of private law from the end of December 2018 to the end of February 2019:

• Elise Bant, ‘Unravelling Fraud in the Wake of Hayward v Zurich Insurance’ (2019) Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 91;
• Elise Bant, and Jeannie M Paterson, ‘Should specifically deterrent or punitive remedies be made available to victims of misleading conduct under the Australian Consumer Law?’ (2019) Torts Law Journal 1;
• Elise Bant, ‘The Buck Stops Here: Holding Banks Responsible for Misleading Conduct’ Pursuit 5 February 2019;
• Elise Bant and Jeannie M Paterson, ‘Understanding Hayne: Why Less is More’ The Conversation, 11 February 2019
• Katy Barnett, ‘Chasing will-o’-the-wisp: the English courts’ impossible quest for certainty in constructive trusts over bribes’ (2019) 25(2) Trusts & Trustees DOI: 10.1093/tandt/ttz007 (forthcoming);
• Simone Degeling, ‘Certainty in calculating money remedies for breach of fiduciary duty’ in Kit Barker and Ross Grantham (eds), Apportionment in Private Law (Hart Publishing, 2018) Ch 9
• Kate Falconer, ‘An Illogical Distinction Continued: Re Creswell and Property Rights in Human Biological Material’ [2019] 1 University of New South Wales Law Journal Forum
• Rosemary Teele Langford, Company Directors’ Duties and Conflicts of Interest (Oxford University Press, 2019);
• Barbara McDonald, ‘Reforming a reform: why has it been so hard to reform proportionate liability reforms?’ in Kit Barker and Ross Grantham (eds), Apportionment in Private Law (Hart Publishing, 2018) Ch 11
• Natalie Skead and Jani McCutcheon, ‘The art of crime: The application of literary proceeds of crime confiscation legislation to visual art’ (2018) 22(3) Media and Arts Law Review
• Prue Vines and Robyn Carroll, ‘The Apology Ordinance: Bold Steps into Some Uncharted Areas of Apology-Protecting Legislation’ (2018) 48 Hong Kong Law Journal 925;
• Sally Wheeler, ‘Modelling the contracts of the future’ (2018) 27 Griffith Law Review DOI: 10.1080/1038441.2017.1552547

If we’ve left anything out, please let us know and we’ll update the list and tweet updates. Our aim with this blog is to be as inclusive as possible. Please contact us (by commenting, by using the “Contact us” mechanism on this post, emailing us at austwomenprivlawnet[at]gmail.com or other social media means) and we will add your publications or news to the post.

Female experts in the media

ABC News is currently trying to build its database of experts to include more women. We encourage our members to self nominate as experts in private law by filling out the form accessed here.

Obligations X: Call for papers

Obligations X has issued its call for papers for its conference in Harvard (co-hosted by Harvard Law School and Melbourne Law School) from July 14 to 17, 2020. The theme is Private Law Inside and Out. The website explains:

The conference theme is intended to provoke discussion about the inside and outside of private law. The conference will focus on the contrast between ‘internalist’ and ‘externalist’ perspectives on the law in this field. It will also consider the boundaries and relationships between private law and morality, private law and economic efficiency, and private law and other policy goals. A central aspiration of this iteration of Obligations is to give private law scholars working in different intellectual traditions an opportunity to identify previously underappreciated overlaps and synergies, and thereby help to break down methodological barriers to an improved understanding of the field.

Both established and early-career legal scholars are invited to submit proposals to present papers addressing the conference theme, either at a general level or in relation to any aspect of the law of obligations broadly conceived – contract, property (including intellectual property), torts, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment, as well as equity and other topics within or closely related to private law.

We’re delighted to confirm that Dr Rosemary Langford‘s monograph, Director’s Duties: Principles and Application has been cited by the High Court of Australia in ASIC v Lewski [2018] HCA 63, at fn 69. Very well deserved. The case involved civil penalty proceedings by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (“ASIC”) against five directors of a failed aged care and retirement trust, and concerned whether they breached their duties when they amended the trust’s constitution.

If you are interested in further details about the case, Katy Barnett at Opinions on High has written a summary here.

We have received the following details about a Private Law Junior Scholars Conference.

Title: Call for Papers – Autonomy in Private Law: Past, Present, Future

Organization: The Private Law Junior Scholars Conference

Event dates and location: June 19-20, 2019, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, Safra Center for Ethics.

CFP deadline: January 20, 2019, midnight EST

Website: pljsc.wordpress.com

The Private Law Junior Scholars Conference is a collaboration between the law faculties of the University of Toronto and Tel Aviv University. It aims to create a forum for junior researchers from around the world to exchange about private law and different aspects of private law scholarship. The conference provides a select number of doctoral candidates, post-doctoral researchers and junior faculty (pre-tenure) with a unique opportunity to present their work and receive meaningful feedback from senior faculty members and peers. Last year’s conference, themed ‘Public Aspects of Private Law’, received 70 submissions. A total of seven presentations were selected by the organizers and leading private law scholars from the universities of Tel Aviv, Toronto and Yale, which included Hanoch Dagan, Avihay Dorfman, Larissa Katz, Daniel Markovits, Ariel Porat, and Arthur Ripstein.

This Year’s Topic: Autonomy in Private Law: Past, Present, Future

Continue reading “The Private Law Junior Scholars Conference” →

We are a group of Australian scholars who write in private law. We have been discussing putting this group together for some years. Our mission is simple and inclusive: to collate the citations of work of Australian women working in private law and to post a list of such works every two months. We invite anyone who is interested in private law to follow our list.