About
Charlotte is a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant and currently supervises undergraduate Public Law seminars. She is conducting doctoral research exploring how civil partnerships and same-sex marriage can help to challenge social and legal constructions about the gendered nature of roles in intimate relationships.
Qualifications
-
MSc Socio-Legal Studies, University of Bristol
-
MA Jurisprudence, University of Oxford (Corpus Christi College)
Biography
After having finished the Bar Vocational Course, Charlotte spent two years working as a family paralegal at Harcus Sinclair, Manches LLP and Payne Hicks Beach solicitors, focusing on big money matrimonial finance work. Subsequently, she was employed as the Assistant Editor of Archbold: Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice, and as an Assistant Editor of Criminal Law Week. During that period, she launched the Archbold ‘e-update’, which informs legal professionals of the latest developments within criminal law, and assisted in the production of the latter publication by researching, reviewing and digesting various legal sources. She then undertook further paralegal work, this time concentrating on publicly funded family cases, before returning to university to complete a Master's degree. Most recently, she was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors for England & Wales before accepting a position at Birmingham.
Teaching
Research
Charlotte's research is looking at how legal professionals negotiate gender in their interactions with their lesbian and gay clients, and whether they have attempted to apply the traditional norms of masculinity and femininity (i.e breadwinning versus homemaking) to this new context. It is also examining whether civil partners feel obliged, when going to the 'law', to claim that their relationships are like heterosexual ones, and asking how reflective they perceive such a claim to be of the way that they conduct their relationships in reality. The study is being conducted through the lenses of heteronormativity and equality.
Other activities
Charlotte is the Socio-Legal Studies Association's Postgraduate Representative.
She is also undertaking a course entitled 'Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education for Doctoral Researchers' at the University's Centre for Learning and Academic Development. Once completed, this will entitle her to apply for recognition as an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She represents her cohort on this course at Participants Liaison Group meetings.
Publications
-
'Myerson: The Impact of the Credit Crunch on Preexisting Divorce Settlements', Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 32(3): 299-307.
-
'The Demise of the Enhanced Standard of Proof in Child Protection Cases: Re B [2008] UKHL 35', Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 31(2): 185-191.