MEDIA RELEASE
11 October 2017
Professor Bernadette McSherry receives inaugural Kayes Fletcher Walker visiting scholar award
Australian criminal law academic Bernadette McSherry is the first person to receive the Kayes Fletcher Walker visiting
scholar award in conjunction with AUT Law School.
The Kayes Fletcher Walker scholarship aims to support an annual visit by an internationally recognised academic working
in the areas of criminal law and criminal justice.
Professor McSherry is the foundation director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute and Adjunct Professor of Law at
the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne and the Faculty of Law, Monash University.
She has published widely in the fields of mental health law and criminal law and in 2007 was appointed an Australian
Research Council Federation Fellow. In 2011 Professor McSherry was elected a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in
Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.
Kayes Fletcher Walker, a law firm based in the heart of the South Auckland legal community, is the Office of the Manukau
Crown Solicitor.
“Kayes Fletcher Walker is delighted to support AUT Law School, its Centre for Non-Adversarial Justice, and the expansion
of AUT’s criminal justice curriculum at its South Auckland Campus”, says Natalie Walker, Kayes Fletcher Walker director
and Crown Solicitor.
Professor of Criminal Law and Justice Studies and Director of the Centre for Non-Adversarial Justice at AUT Law School,
Warren Brookbanks, says the Kayes Fletcher Walker Visiting Scholar programme is the result of discussions between senior
academics at the AUT Law School and the directors of Kayes Fletcher Walker
“The scholarship acknowledges the importance of the relationship between Kayes Fletcher Walker and the AUT Law School,
whose presence is expanding in the AUT South Campus,” says Professor Brookbanks.
“The scholarship provides an invaluable framework for students to encounter and interact with an outstanding criminal
law scholar and to be inspired in the development of their own legal careers.”
The announcement was made at the Unfitness to Stand Trial conference, co-hosted by AUT Law School’s Centre for
Non-Adversarial Justice and the Australian and the New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
Attendance by international speakers at the conference has been made possible with the assistance from the New Zealand
Law Foundation.
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