Associate Professor Kelley Burton | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

Associate Professor Kelley Burton is the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) Discipline Lead for Law, Senior Fellow for the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), lawyer and mediator. She joined UniSC in 2015 to build the law program from the ground up, bringing expertise as a law academic from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Faculty of Law (2000-2014). Internationally and nationally, Kelley serves the higher education sector and law discipline as the Deputy Chair for the Australasian Law Academics Association (ALAA), Co-Chair for the Legal Education Associate Deans (LEAD) Network, General Member of the Editorial Committee  for the Legal Education Review, Queensland Branch Committee Member for the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) and Assessor for the Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Mostly notably, Kelley co-developed the prestigious annual Australian Legal Education Awards (ALEAs) funded by the Council of Australian Law Deans (CALD), and co-developed the national, cross-institutional peer review of teaching program for law academics. Previously, Kelley served on decision-making bodies including the UniSC Academic Board and UniSC Learning and Teaching Committee, and was a Lead for the UniSC School of Law and Society’s Higher Education Academy (HEA).

Nationally, Kelley’s innovation and excellence in learning and teaching was recognised by a prestigious 2017 $10,000 Australian Award for University Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. More specifically, the award recognised leadership in designing innovative resources that demonstrate a strong command of criminal law education and fulfil the future needs of budding lawyers.

Kelley’s research has had international and national impact, being cited by the Law Commission of England and Wales, Australian Law Reform Commission and Law Reform Commission of Western Australia, and resulting in criminal law reforms such as new offences to stop coercive control and imaged-based abuse, a new consent definition for sexual offences and double jeopardy exceptions to enable cases to be reopened. Her extensive research record  includes peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, international and national conference papers, submissions to law reform commissions, books and book reviews.

Kelley is a leading author of eight learner-centred books on criminal law in Queensland and Western Australia, which develop knowledge and problem-solving skills of students studying criminal law and criminology. Her two most recent books are:

• Kelley Burton, Thomas Crofts, James Duffy and Meredith Blake, Criminal Law in Queensland and Western Australia (LexisNexis, 3^rd ed, 2023).
• Kelley Burton, Thomas Crofts and Stella Tarrant, Principles of Criminal Law in Queensland and Western Australia (Thomson Reuters, 3^rd ed, 2020).

More than 23,700 new copies of Kelley's books have been sold to date, with further dissemination via the large marketing in second-hand student texts, and their inclusion in library collections.

In 2009, Kelley was the first student to complete a PhD in Law at the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). Her PhD thesis is entitled, 'A Principled Approach to Criminalisation: When Should Making and/or Distributing Visual Recordings be Criminalised?'. This substantial piece of work takes a principled approach to examining the criminalisation of making and/or distributing visual recordings by exploring constructs of privacy, harm, morality, culpability, consent, punishment, social welfare and individual autonomy. This topic is still relevant today due to the proliferation of visual recordings, widespread use of social media and privacy concerns. Kelley was invited to be a Visiting Professor for Western University in Ontario, Canada, where she developed and delivered a criminal law and privacy course based on her leading edge PhD research.

Before Kelley’s academic career, she specialised in taxation and privacy laws for the Australian Taxation Office, drafted wills and enduring powers of attorney for the Queensland Public Trustee, worked for a large and small law firm, and assisted a barrister-at-law prepare for trial.