Professor Elaine Sutherland

Emeritus Professor

Law University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor Elaine Sutherland

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About me

Professor Sutherland researches, publishes and presents papers on child and family law around the world. In addition to her work in the Scottish and US domestic contexts, she has long pursued her interest in the comparative and international aspects of the subject.

She began her career in academia at the University of Edinburgh, in 1980, subsequently moving to the University of Glasgow. In 2006, she was recruited by the University of Stirling to join the newly-created Stirling Law School as the inaugural Professor of Child and Family Law. When she retired from teaching there, in 2020, Stirling University granted her emeritus status.

Having spent half of each year researching and teaching at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, for some 20 years until 2018, she is now a Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita there and will continue her relationship with Lewis & Clark Law School on a less scheduled basis.

From 2020 to 2023, she was a professor at the University of Bergen, Norway, working as part of an international team on the Legitimacy Challenges project: https://www.discretion.uib.no/projects/legitimacy-challenges/

Professor Sutherland is the sole author of over 160 articles and book chapters and 7 books and the editor or co-editor of 9 other volumes (see, Outputs). Some focus on Scots child and family law and, most recently, have included Child and Family Law: Vol II: Intimate Adult Relationships (2022) and articles addressing law reform, intimate adult relationships, child-parent relationships, child protection and juvenile justice. Other publications reflect her comparative and international law interests: see, for example, two volumes published by Cambridge University Press, The Future of Child and Family Law: International Predictions (2012) and Implementing Article 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: Best Interests, Welfare and Well-being (2016). Yet other publications are concerned with more general developments in contemporary Scots law and its history. Since 1983, she has contributed the Scottish chapter to the International Survey of Family Law, the annual flagship publication of the International Society of Family Law, the leading academic organisation in the field.

In 2012, she founded the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Implementing Project (CRC-IP) to explore implementation of the CRC in the international and comparative contexts. To date, the CRC-IP has organised five international colloquia, examining article 12 (participation rights of the child: University of Auckland, New Zealand, 2013), article 6 (child's right to life, survival and development: University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2014), article 3 (primacy of the child's best interests: Edinburgh, Scotland, 2015), article 2 (prohibition of discrimination: University of Bergen, Norway, 2017) and article 5 (parental guidance and child's evolving capacities: University of Cambridge, England, 2019).

Professor Sutherland has been a member of the Family Law Committee of the Law Society of Scotland for some 40 years and, in 2019, was appointed by the Scottish Law Commission to its Advisory Group on Cohabitation. She is consulted regularly by government agencies, non-governmental organisations and the media on child and family law and reform thereof and attends and presents papers at national and international conferences.

Current Appointments:  Professor Emerita, University of Stirling, 2020 - present; Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita, Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon, 2018 - present.

Principal previous appointments: Professor, University of Bergen, 2020 - 2023; Professor of Child and Family, Law School, University of Stirling, 2006 - 2020; Distinguished Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon, 1999-2018; Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, School of Law, University of Glasgow, 1989-2005; Lecturer, Department of Scots Law, University of Edinburgh, 1980-1988; Apprentice Solicitor, Drummond & Co, W.S., Edinburgh, 1979-1980.

Current Research Projects:   With one volume of the third edition of her treatise, Child and Family Law: Intimate Adult Relationships, being published in 2022, Professor Sutherland is currently working on the companion volume, Children and Young People, and writing a number of articles and book chapters.

Academic and Professional Qualifications:   LLB (1st class Honours in Private Law), University of Glasgow, 1978; LLM, University of British Columbia, Canada, 1985; Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2001.

Family Law; Intimate Adult Relationships; Child Law; Comparative Child and Family Law; Youth Justice; Human Rights and the Family; Medico-Legal Issues and the Family; Gender, Sexual Orientation and the Law.

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