Rosemary began her academic career at the University of Melbourne, subsequently moving to Griffith University, Brisbane, where she served as Director of the Socio-Legal Research Centre and then Dean of the Law Faculty. She moved to the University of Kent in 2006, and later spent four years at Queen Mary, University of London before returning to the University of Kent in 2018. She was Co-Deputy Director (People and EDI) of the Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice in 2020-22, and Head of Kent Law School, 2022-24. She joined Loughborough University in January 2025.
Rosemary is a founding editor of feminists@law, an online open access journal of feminist legal scholarship, and is general editor of two book series: the Onati International Series in Law and Society, and the Edward Elgar Research Handbooks in Law and Society. She is a former Chair of the Socio-Legal Studies Association, and a former academic member of the Family Justice Council and Chair of the FJC’s Domestic Abuse Working Group. She was a member of the sub-panel for Law in REF2021.
Rosemary was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2012, in recognition of the eminence and impact of her contribution to social science, and in 2024 was awarded the Socio-Legal Studies Association’s annual prize for Contributions to the Socio-Legal Community. In December 2022 she was appointed KC (honoris causa) in recognition of her “scholarly achievements in the study of the Family Justice System, together with her work in the important field of domestic abuse which has directly affected legislative developments”.
Rosemary is a leading, international feminist socio-legal scholar. Her research focuses on family justice, particularly in the area of domestic abuse; judging and the judiciary; and access to justice.
In the family justice field, she was the lead author of a major report for the Ministry of Justice (2020), which has resulted in significant ongoing reforms to the family justice system. Her current research includes a commissioned project for the Office of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, piloting a review and reporting mechanism on the family courts’ handling of domestic abuse cases.
She was one of the founders of the feminist judgment projects, a new methodology for feminist socio-legal critique and activism, which involves rewriting legal judgments from the perspective of an imagined feminist judge deciding the case alongside the original judges. This methodology has been adopted in numerous projects around the world including in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, international law, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Central and Eastern Europe and Vietnam. Rosemary’s research has also tracked and documented ‘real world’ feminist judging, including a series of publications on Lady Hale, the first woman President of the UK Supreme Court.
Rosemary has taught Family Law for many years, as well as Research Methods for postgraduate students.
- Rosemary Hunter and Erika Rackley (eds), Justice for Everyone: The Jurisprudence and Legal Lives of Brenda Hale (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
- Rosemary Hunter, Sharyn Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack, ‘Feminist Judging in Lower Courts’ (2021) 48(4) Journal of Law and Society 595-617.
- Rosemary Hunter, Mandy Burton and Liz Trinder, Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases: Final Report (Ministry of Justice, 2020).
- Rosemary Hunter, ‘Feminist Judging in the “Real World”’ (2018) 8(9) Onati Socio-Legal Series 1275-1306.
- Anne Barlow, Rosemary Hunter, Janet Smithson and Jan Ewing, Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving Family Disputes in Neoliberal Times (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Winner of the 2018 Hart SLSA Book Prize.
- Rosemary Hunter and Danielle Tyson, ‘The Implementation of Feminist Law Reforms: The Case of Post-Provocation Sentencing’ (2017) 26(2) Social and Legal Studies 129-165.
- Rosemary Hunter, Clare McGlynn and Erika Rackley (eds), Feminist Judgments: From Theory to Practice (Hart Publishing, 2010).
- Rosemary Hunter, ‘More Than Just a Different Face? Judicial Diversity and Decision-making’ (2015) 68 Current Legal Problems 119-141.