Fiona Kelly

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. (UBC); LL.M. (UBC); LL.B. (Hons) (Melbourne); B.A. (Melbourne)

Tel: (604) 827-3602
Fax: 604.822.8108
E-mail: kelly@law.ubc.ca
Office Location: Allard Hall, room 359

Profile

Fiona Kelly joined the UBC Faculty of Law in July 2007. Prior to joining the Faculty full-time, Fiona was as a Sessional Instructor at UBC. Prior to joining the Faculty full-time, Assistant Professor Fiona Kelly joined the UBC Faculty of Law in July 2007. Professor Kelly completed her PhD in Law at UBC in 2007. During her time as a Doctoral student, Professor Kelly was the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards, including the Trudeau Doctoral Scholarship, the most prestigious scholarship available to doctoral students in Canada.

Professor Kelly's recent research focuses on the law's treatment of non-normative family forms, focusing on both lesbian motherhood and single mothering by choice. Professor Kelly's recently published book Transforming Law's Family: The Legal Recognition of Planned Lesbian Motherhood (UBC Press, 2011) reports the findings of her empirical study on planned lesbian motherhood in Canada. Together with Professor Susan Boyd, Professory Kelly is also completing a SSHRC-funded project on autonomous mothering in Canada. In addition, Professor Kelly has begun working on two new projects, a study of the use of supervised access orders in Canadian family law and a project focused on the treatment of non-normative attachment-based parenting practices by judges in custody and access disputes. Professor Kelly's academic interests include family law, tort law, children and the law, sexuality and the law, and feminist legal theory.

COURSES

• Family Law
• Torts

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Family Law
• Tort Law
• Children and the Law
• Sexuality and the Law
• Feminist Legal Theory

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLISHED WORKS

• Fiona Kelly, "(Re)forming Parenthood: The Assignment of Legal Parentage Within Planned Lesbian Families" (2009) 40 Ottawa L. Rev. 185-222
• Fiona Kelly, "Private Law Responses to Domestic Violence: The Intersection of Family Law and Tort" (2009) 44 Sup. Ct. L. Rev. (2d) 321-341
• Fiona Kelly, "Custody and Access Decision-Making and the Breastfeeding Child: Cavannah v. Johne, [2008] O.J. No. 5027 (Sup. Ct.)" (2009) 25 Can. J. Fam. L. 133-153
• Fiona Kelly, "Producing Paternity: The Role of Legal Fatherhood in Maintaining the Traditional Family" (2009) 21:2 Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 315-51
• Fiona Kelly, "Before You Host a Party Read This: Social Host Liability and the Decision in Childs v Desormeaux" (2006) 39(2) UBC Law Review 371-388
• Fiona Kelly, "(Mis)placed Justice: Justice, Care and Reforming the ‘Best Interests of the Child’ Principle in Canadian Child Custody and Access Law" in Law Commission of Canada, ed., The "Place" of Justice Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2006) 44-66.
• Fiona Kelly, "Conceptualizing the Child Through an ‘Ethic of Care’: Lessons for Family Law" (2005) 1(4) International Journal of Law in Context 375-396.
• Fiona Kelly & Belinda Fehlberg, "Australia’s Fragmented Family Law System: Jurisdictional Overlaps in the Area of Child Protection" (2002) 16 International Journal of Law, Policy and  the Family 38-70.

Publications listed on the UBC Law Library Faculty Research Publications Database