Dr Adrienne Barnett
Reader in Law

Summary

Adrienne Barnett was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1981 and practised at the independent Bar in London for over 30 years, for most of which she specialised in Family Law, primarily representing parents and children in serious care cases and in private law cases involving allegations of domestic abuse. She is a door tenant at One Pump Court Chambers. She teaches Family Law and Children and the Law.

Dr Barnett's specialist area of research is domestic abuse and family court proceedings and more recently parental alienation. She has published widely and presented papers at numerous academic and professional conferences in the UK and abroad. She is a member of the Advisory Group of Rights of Women, an external member of the Cafcass Research Advisory Committee, a core founder member of SHERA Research Network, the UK lead on the international strategy group of Hague Mothers (a FiliA legacy project), an Advisor to Right to Equality, and a member of the Advisory Group of SafeLives Domestic Abuse Training for Lawyers. Dr Barnett has  been active in policy change and professional training in the area of domestic abuse and family court proceedings. She was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice to undertake a literature review to support their inquiry into domestic abuse and the family courts, published in June 2020. She is involved in a number of research projects investigating domestic abuse, parental alienation and family court proceedings. Dr Barnett has recently initiated a Domestic Abuse Clinic at Brunel Law School in partnership with National Legal Service LLP. 

Qualifications

BA Degree (English Major) (University of Cape Town, SA), 1977; Diploma in Law (Polytechnic of Central London, now University of Westminster), 1980; Bar Finals Examinations (Inns of Court School of Law), 1981; LLM (with Distinction) in Child Law and Policy (Brunel University), 1998; PhD (Brunel University), 2014

Responsibility

Divisional Lead, Private and Commercial Law