Hong Kong’s place as a world city and hub of all things international in Asia is well established and Hong Kong’s development has been lived out on the world stage. Legal education in Hong Kong has evolved against this backdrop, from aspiring lawyers initially having to seek their legal education in England, to the flourishing of today’s vibrant home-grown legal education sector. The teaching of family law in Hong Kong has evolved within this history and has been further shaped by certain culture-specific considerations, from the relevance of Chinese customary laws to the discussion of legal protection for diverse family formats that have not historically been recognised under Hong Kong law.

In this seminar, based on Prof. Scully-Johnson’s contribution to a recent international collection of essays, Teaching Family Law: Reflections on Pedagogy and Practice, edited by Mark Henaghan and Henry Kha, she will explore her own approach to Family Law pedagogy, with reference to three primary considerations: active learning; setting family law within a multidisciplinary context; and teaching in a multicultural society. She will also reflect on the challenges the family justice system faces in Hong Kong today and how family law pedagogy can best respond to those.

About the Speaker:

After graduating from University College London (LL.B (Hons); LL.M in Legal Theory & Legal History) Anne Scully-Johnson (formerly Anne Scully-Hill) lectured in law in London for more than ten years before moving to Hong Kong where she was Associate Professor first at City University and then at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. After working for three years in Denmark, doing family and child law research, as well as teaching Mediation and Law at Copenhagen University, Anne moved back to the UK where she has had a busy family mediation practice for the past three years incorporating work as an accredited family mediator, child consultant and conflict management coach. Enjoying practice but missing academic life, Anne has recently taken up the offer of a senior fractional appointment with Southampton Solent University (recipient of an outstanding three gold ratings in the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework and ranked 6th for Law in the 2023 Guardian UK rankings) to teach and research in Family Law and in Dispute Resolution.

She has published on family law and child law in numerous peer reviewed journals including The International Survey of Family Law, the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, the Child & Family Law Quarterly, the Hong Kong Law Journal, and the Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law, as well as being invited to review for several peer reviewed journals in the field. She has worked with NGOs including Pathfinders and Mother’s Choice on their training resources and research publications. Anne has a background too of research in public law, specifically judicial review, publishing in the International Journal of Constitutional Law and the Cambridge Law Journal, and is co-author of Hong Kong Administrative Law.

Anne has fulfilled a number of public service roles, having been an adviser to the Hong Kong Ombudsman, and member of: the Secretary for Justice’s Working Group on Mediation, the Hong Kong Law Society’s Family Law Committee, the Organizing Committee for the Children’s Issues Forum, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Working Group on the Treaty to End Violence Against Women and Girls (Everywoman Everywhere), and the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution Asia Pacific Practice Group. She is a member of the UK Family Mediation Council, Resolution, and the Family Mediator’s Association.