Professor Richard Chisholm
Biography
Richard Chisholm grew up in Sydney and did his undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney (BA, LLB, 1968) and his post graduate degree at Oxford (BCL, 1970), after which he was an academic at the University of New South Wales Law School, specialising in family law. In the 1970s he was a founding member of the Aboriginal Legal Service, and the founding President of the children’s rights group Action for Children. He was appointed as a Judge of the Family Court of Australia in 1993. On his retirement in 2004, he resumed academic work, and was appointed Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Sydney, and, after his move to Canberra in 2006, has been a Adjunct Professor, then an Honorary Professor, at the ANU College of Law.
He was awarded the AM in 2009 for ‘service to the judiciary, to the law and to legal education, particularly in the field of family law and the welfare and rights of children and young people’. He was made a Life Member of the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia in 2018, and awarded an Honorary LLD by the University of NSW in 2019.
He has worked with a variety of organisations, including the Family Law Council, the Australian Law Reform Commission, the New South Wales Law Reform Commission, and the NSW Child Protection Council. His work includes collaborative projects with the Attorney-General’s Department, Professor Patrick Parkinson, Professor Bruce Smyth, Dr Jenn McIntosh. He was appointed as a member of Advisory Council of the Australian Institute of Family Studies in 2012 and as a member of the Australian Law Reform Commission's Advisory Committee for its review of Family Law in 2017-2019. His publications include the Family Courts Violence Review (2009), and reports in 2013 and 2014 on the sharing of information between the family law and the child protection systems (available on the AGD website).
Publications
- Chisholm, R, Christie, S & Kearney, J 2017, Annotated Family Law Legislation, 4th edition, LexisNexis Butterworths, Australia.
- Smyth, B, Bonython, W, Rodgers, B et al 2017, Certifying mediation: A study of section 60I certificates. ANU Centre for Social Research Working Paper No. 2. ANU CSRM: Canberra
- Smyth, B, Chisholm, R, Rodgers, B et al. 2014, 'Legislating for shared-time parenting after parental separation: Insights from Australia?', Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 109-149.
- Chisholm, R 2013, Information-Sharing in Family Law & Child Protection: Enhancing Collaboration.
- Keyes, M & Chisholm, R 2013, 'Commercial Surrogacy-some troubling family law issues', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 27, pp. 105-134.
- Chisholm, R & Nettheim, G 2012, Understanding law: an introduction to Australia's legal system (8th ed), LexisNexis Butterworths, Australia.
- Chisholm, R 2012, 'Information rights and donor conception: lessons from adoption?', Journal of Law and Medicine, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 722-741.
- Chisholm, R 2011, 'The Family Law Violence Amendment of 2011: A progress report, featuring the debate about Family Violence Orders', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 25, pp. 79-95.
- Chisholm, R 2011, 'From Goode to Marvel-ous', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 25, pp. 153-156.
- Chisholm, R 2011, 'Child abuse allegations in family law cases: A review of the law', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 25, pp. 1-32.
- Chisholm, R 2011, 'Reid v Lynch', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 25, pp. 73-78.
- Chisholm, R 2010, 'How to treat allegations of violence and abuse: Amador v Amador', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 24, p. 276.
- Chisholm, R 2010, 'Legislating about family violence: The Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 24, pp. 283-295.
- Chisholm, R 2010, 'Unacceptable risk and relocation issues: Partington v Cade (No. 2)', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 24, pp. 115-122.
- Chisholm, R 2010, 'Foreword: Special Issue of UNSW Journal on Family Violence', University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 810-817.
- Chisholm, R & Parkinson, P 2010, 'Reasonable practicability as a requirement: The High Court's decision in MRR v GR', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 24, pp. 255-271.
- Chisholm, R 2010, 'Parentage: Some testing problems', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 24, pp. 242-254.
- Chisholm, R 2010, 'Did the 2006 amendments downgrade non-parents? Aldridge v Keaton', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 24, p. 123.
- Chisholm, R 2010, 'When a "father" turns out not to be, does the Act give priority to the (biological) mother? Mulvany v Lane', Australian Journal of Family Law, vol. 24, p. 128.
- Chisholm, R 2009, 'The meanings of 'meaningful' within the Family Law Act amendments of 2006: A legal perspective', Journal of Family Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 60-66.
- Chisholm, R & McIntosh, J 2008, 'Cautionary notes on the shared care of children in conflicted parental separation', Journal of Family Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 37-52.