Professor Lesley-Anne Barnes Macfarlane
- Professor of Law, Childhood and Children's Rights (Law)
Biography
Lesley-Anne is Professor of Law, Childhood and Children's Rights in the School of Law. Her research and teaching interests are focused on the influence of international children’s rights obligations on the development of law and legal practice in Scotland and comparative jurisdictions. She has published widely on issues such as reform of the family court system, the child’s right to be heard, the parent-child relationship and perceptions of childhood capacity in law. Her current research, supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, explores how children's human rights and legal frameworks interact with interdisciplinary understandings of childhood, capacity and responsibility.
She also contributes to policy development and debate on reform in child and family law. She has undertaken commissioned work for the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee in relation to scrutiny of proposed law reforms. She has given evidence on children's rights-based reforms to the Parliament's Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. Lesley-Anne was a member of the Advisory Group to the Scottish Law Commission on cohabitation law reform, and she is currently the Law Society of Scotland Examiner in family law. In 2020, she was commissioned by the Judicial Institute for Scotland to produce a judicial briefing paper on children’s rights reforms and subsequently delivered training on aspects of child and family law reform to Scotland’s judiciary.
Before becoming an academic, Lesley-Anne specialised as a child and family lawyer, regularly representing children and adults in court. She has been accredited as a lawyer-mediator and her experience of working as a child welfare reporter and curator-ad-litem in complex court proceedings informs her research. She previously taught at Edinburgh Napier University, where she was the founding Director of the Research Centre for Child & Family Law and Policy. She is a UofG Centre for Public Policy Affiliated Researcher, and her research informs national and comparative law and policy debates concerning children, childhood and legal reform.
Research interests
Research interests include: (i) the influence of children's human rights on the development of law and legal policy in Scotland and comparative jurisdictions; (ii) the relationship between law and other disciplines; (iii) child law and family law.
Since 2014, Lesley-Anne has been involved in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Implementation Project ('CRC-IP'), which evaluates implementation of the Convention in comparative contexts.
During her research fellowship, she established the International Project on Childhood Contributory Negligence, which promotes comparative study of the operation of the contributory negligence doctrine in legal proceedings brought by or on behalf of children. This work is also supported by an international Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Collaboration Grant (2025-28).
Grants
• 2025 – 2028: Royal Society of Edinburgh, Research Collaboration Grant, with Associate Professor E Zitzke, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, for project entitled 'Rationalising childhood contributory negligence - an exploration of international perspectives and approaches'
• 2023 – 2024: Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, for project entitled 'Children, childhood and delict'
• 2021 – 2022: The Clark Foundation for Legal Education, family law student research internship pilot scheme
• 2020 onwards: Judicial Institute for Scotland, judicial briefing and training on Children (Scotland) Act 2020 and children's participation in family court cases
• 2020 – 2022: Royal Society of Edinburgh, Research Network Award, as PI, with Professor R Whitecross, Edinburgh Napier University
• 2019: Scottish Parliament, research work/written report on Children (Scotland) Bill 2019, commissioned by Justice Committee
• 2018 – 2019: Royal Society of Edinburgh, Research Workshop Award to design/host multi-disciplinary workshop series on Scots child and family law, as PI, with Professor R Whitecross, Edinburgh Napier University
• 2015: The Clark Foundation for Legal Education, with Professor EE Sutherland (PI), University of Stirling, funding and support for organisation of 'Convention on the Rights of the Child Implementation Project Colloquium' from the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland
• 2009: The Clark Foundation for Legal Education: research on civil remedies for victims of school bullying
Supervision
Lesley-Anne welcomes enquiries from potential PhD students across all areas of child and family law and children's rights and the law.
She is also happy to consider enquiries from those seeking to study towards an LLM by Research.
Current research students:
- Chen, Siyu
Redefining Boundarires: Exploring the Implications of Raising the Marriage Age to 18 in Scotland
Teaching
She is committed to providing an engaging, inclusive and research-led learning experience, shaped by student feedback and contemporary legal developments. Her teaching has been recognised through teaching awards and nominations.
Lesley-Anne contributes to teaching on the following courses:
Children’s Rights (honours): course convenor
Comparative Issues in Children's Rights (honours): course convenor
Issues of Family Law (honours): contributor
Comparative Family Law (honours): contributor
Family Law (Level 1): tutor
Additional information
In addition to conference and workshop organisation, she regularly presents her work at national and international interdisciplinary events (e.g., University of Bergen, University of Cambridge, University College Cork, Stellenbosch University).
Education
University of Glasgow: LLB (Hons) 1st Class
Bennett Miller Prize (most distinguished Honours graduate in Private Law)
University of Glasgow: Diploma in Legal Practice (Distinction)
University of Strathclyde: LLM (by Research)
Edinburgh Napier University: PhD
Affiliations
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Implementation Project (‘CRC-IP’)
European Law Institute (Fellow)
ELI Family Law Special Interest Group member
International Society of Family Lawyers
Society of Legal Scholars
Higher Education Academy (Fellow)
International Project on Childhood Contributory Negligence
Qualified solicitor (non-practising) in Scotland
Law Society of Scotland Examiner in Family Law; Board of Examiners member
Peer reviewer
Selected reviewing activity includes: work for the International Journal of Human Rights; Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law; Juridical Review; book publishers including Brill, Oxford University Press and Edinburgh University Press; and grant review for the European Research Council.
