Emerita Professor Margaret Thornton
BA(Hons) (Syd); LLB (UNSW); LLM (Yale); FASSA; FAAL
Professor of Law and ANU Public Policy Fellow
ANU College of Law
T:
0261258363
Areas of expertise
- Legal Practice, Lawyering And The Legal Profession 180121
- Higher Education 130103
- Law And Society 180119
Research interests
Discrimination Law Feminist Legal Theory Legal ProfessionLegal Education and the Corporatisation of Universities
Biography
MARGARET THORNTON is an Emerita Professor of Law at the Australian National University in Canberra. She has degrees from Sydney, UNSW and Yale, and is a Barrister of the Supreme Court of NSW and the High Court of Australia. She formerly occupied the Richard McGarvie Chair of Socio-Legal Studies at La Trobe University and has held visiting fellowships at Oxford, London, Columbia, Sydney and York, Canada. She has published extensively on issues relating to women and the law, including the only book-length study of women and the legal profession in Australia: Dissonance and Distrust: Women and the Legal Profession, Oxford 1996 (also published in Chinese by the Law Press, Beijing, 2001). Other books include The Liberal Promise: Anti-Discrimination Legislation in Australia(Oxford, 1990), Privatising the Public University: The Case of Law (Routledge, 2012) and Land the Quest for Gender Equality (ANU Press, 2023). Her current research project entails a study of the new ways of practising law with regard to gender, professionalism and technology. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.
Researcher's projects
2012-2018: ARC Discovery Project. 'Balancing Law and Life'
2006-2012: 'ARC Discovery Project EEO in a Culture of Uncertainty' (ARC Professorial Fellowship)
2020-21: Thornton, Allen & Blackham, 'Using transparency to achieve equality', ASSA
Current student projects
PhD: Nilanka Goonetillake: Pay anc conditions of junior lawyers - rethinking the role of lawyers in their early career
PhD: Emma Graham: Maternity discrimination resulting in job loss: examining the role of labour laws
PhD: Li Zhuoyu: The Family Status Discrimination Ordinance in Hong Kong: Are we closer to work-family reconciliation?
PhD: Su Robertson, Clinical legal education, the benchmark lawyer and disruptive women
Publications
- Thornton, M 2023, 'Privatising Sexual Harassment', Sydney Law Review, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 371-395.
- Thornton, M 2021, 'Legal professionalism in a context of Uberisation', International Journal of the Legal Profession.
- Thornton, M 2021, 'Coronavirus and the Colonisation of Private Life', Legalities, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 44-67.
- Thornton, M 2021, 'Equality and Anti-Discrimination Legislation: An Uneasy Relationship', Law in Context, vol. 37, no. 2.
- Thornton, M 2021, 'The first and last (?) feminist law professors in Australia', in Ulrike Schultz, Gisela Shaw, Margaret Thornton & Rosemary Auchmuty (ed.), Gender and Careers in the Legal Academy, Hart Publishing, Oxford United Kingdom, pp. 457-473.
- Thornton, M 2021, 'Challenging sexism in elite boys’ schools', Alternative Law Journal, vol. 46, no. 2, p. 173.
- Thornton, M & Wood, A 2020, 'Australia: A Legal Profession Globalised and Magnified', in R L Abel, O Hammerslev, H Sommerlad & U Schultz (ed.), Lawyers in 21st-Century Societies, Hart Publishing, London, pp. 45-64.
- Thornton, M 2020, 'Who cares? The conundrum for gender equality in legal practice', University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 1473-1493.
- Thornton, M 2020, 'The challenge for law schools of satisfying multiple masters', Australian Universities' Review, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 5-13.
- Thornton, M 2020, 'Is 'Uberisation' the path to Lawyer Wellbeing?', in Michael Legg, Prue Vines & Janet Chan (ed.), The Impact of Technology on the Wellbeing of the Legal Profession, Intersentia, Cambridge, pp. 177-198.
- Thornton, M 2019, 'The Feminist Fandango with the Legal Academy', in Dorota Gozdecka and Anne Macduff (ed.), Feminism, Postfeminism and Legal Theory: Beyond the Gendered Subject?, Routledge, London, United Kingdom, pp. 11-29.
- Curran, L, Evans, A, Foley, T et al 2019, The adequacy of legal ethics education in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia.
- Thornton, M 2019, 'Towards the Uberisation of Legal Practice', Law, Technology and Humans, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 46-63: https://doi.org/10.5204/lthj.vi.i1.1277.
- Thornton, M 2018, 'Law Mart: Justice, Access, and For-profit Law Schools', Canadian Journal of Sociology, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 321-324.
- Thornton, M 2018, 'Challenging the Legal Profession a Century on: The Case of Edith Haynes', University of Western Australia Law Review, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 1-20.
- Thornton, M 2018, 'Social Status: The Last Bastion of Discrimination', Anti-Discrimination Law Review, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 5-26.
- Thornton, M 2017, 'Dreaming of Diversity in Legal Education', in Ron Levy, Molly O'Brien, Simon Rice, Pauline Ridge and Margaret Thornton (ed.), New Directions for Law in Australia: Essays in Contemporary Law Reform, ANU Press, Canberra, pp. 549-557.
- Thornton, M & Roberts, H 2017, 'Women Judges, Private Lives: (In)visibilities in Fact and Fiction', University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 761-777pp.
- Levy, R, O'Brien, M, Rice, S et al 2017, 'Introduction', in (ed.), New Directions for Law in Australia: Essays in Contemporary Law Reform, ANU Press, Canberra, pp. 1-10.
- Thornton, M 2017, 'How the Higher Education "Industry" Shapes the Discipline of Law: The Case of Australia', Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 101-117.
- Thornton, M 2016, 'Feminism and the Public-Private Divide', in Gabrielle Appleby and Rosalind Dixon (ed.), The Critical Judgments Project: Re-reading Monis v The Queen, The Federation Press, Annandale, NSW.
- Thornton, M 2016, 'Squeezing the life out of lawyers: legal practice in the market embrace', Griffith Law Review, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 471-491pp.
- Thornton, M 2016, 'Law student wellbeing: A neoliberal conundrum', Australian Universities' Review, vol. 58, no. 2, pp. 42-50pp.
- Thornton, M 2016, 'Of boiled frogs and other things', Prometheus, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 79-82pp.
- Thornton, M 2016, 'The flexible cyborg: work-life balance in legal practice', Sydney Law Review, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 1-21.
- Thornton, M 2016, 'Work/life or work/work? Corporate legal practice in the twenty-first century', International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 13-39.
- Thornton, M 2015, 'Merit in a Legal Frame', in Diann Rodgers-Healey (ed.), Pathways to Gender Equality in Australia: The role of Merit and Quotas, Australian Centre for Leadership for Women, Minnamurra, NSW, pp. n/a.
- Thornton, M 2015, 'Feminism and the Neoliberal State', in Kiraly, Miranda & Tyler, Meagan (ed.), Freedom Fallacy: The limits of liberal feminism, Connor Court Publishing, Ballarat, pp. 43-54.
- Thornton, M 2015, 'Neoliberal Governmentality and the Retreat from Gender Equality', in Ashleigh Barnes (ed.), Feminisms of Discontent: Global Contestations, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, India.
- Thornton, M & Genovese, A 2015, 'On the Liberal Promise: A Conversation', The Australian Feminist Law Journal, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 3-18.
- Thornton, M 2015, 'The Political Contingency of Sex Discrimination Legislation: The Case of Australia', Laws, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 314-334: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/4/3/314.
- Thornton, M 2014, 'Deregulation, debt and the discipline of law', Alternative Law Journal, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 213-216.
- Thornton, M 2014, 'Hypercompetitiveness or a Balanced Life? Gendered Discourses in the Globalisation of Australian Law Firms', Legal Ethics, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 153-176.
- Thornton, M 2014, 'The Indirection of Sex Discrimination: State of New South Wales v Amery', in Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter (ed.), Australian Feminist Judgments, Hart Publishing, Oxford and Portland, Oregon, pp. 419-423.
- Thornton, M & Shannon, L 2014, ''Selling the Dream': Law School Branding and the Illusion of Choice', in M Thornton (ed.), Through a Glass Darkly: The Social Sciences Look at the Neoliberal University, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia, pp. 157-176.
- Thornton, M 2014, 'Introduction: The Retreat from the Critical', in M Thornton (ed.), Through a Glass Darkly: The Social Sciences Look at the Neoliberal University, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia, pp. 1-15.
- Thornton, M, ed., 2014, Through A Glass Darkly: The Social Sciences Look at the Neoliberal University, ANU Press, Canberra.
- Thornton, M 2014, 'Legal education in the corporate university', Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 10, pp. 19-35 http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110413-030714.
- Thornton, M 2013, 'THE MIRAGE OF MERIT: Reconstituting the 'Ideal Academic'', Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 28, no. 76, pp. 127-143.
- Thornton, M 2013, 'Introduction [to Part IV: Justice in a Comparative Context]', in Patricia Easteal (ed.), Justice Connections, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, pp. 242-245.
- Thornton, M 2013, 'Inhabiting the neoliberal university', Alternative Law Journal, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 72-72.
- Thornton, M & Shannon, L 2013, '˜Selling the Dream": Law School Branding and the Illusion of Choice', Legal Education Review, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 249-271, reprinted in M Thornton (ed.), Through a Glass Darkly: The Social Sciences Look at the Neoliberal University, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia, 2014, pp. 157-176.
- Thornton, M 2013, 'The Changing Gender Regime in the Neoliberal Gender Academy', Zeitschrift fur Rechtssoziologie (The German Journal of Law and Society), vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 235-251.
- Thornton, M 2012, 'The Elusiveness of Class Discrimination', LegalDate, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 7-8.
- Thornton, M 2012, Movements in the modernisation of marriage, pp. online.
- Thornton, M 2012, 'Proactive or reactive? The Senate Report on the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Amendment Bill 2012 (Cth)', Australian Journal of Labour Law, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 284-291.
- Thornton, M 2012, Privatising the Public University: The Case of Law, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, Oxon, UK (xxi + 270 pp).
- Thornton, M 2012, 'The new knowledge economy and the transformation of the law discipline', International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol. 19, no. 2-3, pp. 265-281.
- Thornton, M, Corporate hue colours issue of accountability, The Australian, 29 March, 2012, p. 29.
- Allen, D, Bailey, P, Chapman, A et al 2011, Recommendations for a Consolidated Federal Anti-Discrimination Law in Australia: Discrimination Law Experts Roundtable.
- Thornton, M 2011, 'Christianity 'Privileged' in Laws protecting Fairness', Viewpoint: Perspectives on Public Policy, vol. February 2011, no. 5, pp. 41-45.
- Thornton, M 2011, 'Justice, the Individual and the Courtroom: Comment on Bonython; Ailwood; Kukulies-Smith and Priest', Canberra Law Review, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 114-118.
- Bailey, P, Allen, D, Chapman, A et al 2011, Consolidation of Commonwealth Anti-Discrimination Laws.
- Thornton, M 2011, 'An Inconsistant Affair: Feminism and the Legal Academy', in Martha Albertson Fineman (ed.), Transcending the Boundaries of Law: Generations of Feminism and Legal Theory, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, UK & New York, pp. 25-39.
- Thornton, M 2011, The market comes to law school, The Australian, 13 September, pp. N/A.
- Morgan, W, Thornton, M, Rice, S et al. 2010, Report on Recommendations for a Consolidated Federal Anti-Discrimination Law in Australia: Discrimination Law Experts Roundtable.
- Thornton, M 2010, 'Free Trade and Justice: A Discomfiting Liaison', in Helen Irving, Jacqueline Mowbray, Kevin Walton (ed.), Julius Stone: A Study in Influence, The Federation Press, Sydney, pp. 145-165.
- Thornton, M 2008, Inquiry into the Effectiveness of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth).
- Thornton, M 2008, Submission to Review of Australian Higher Education.
- Thornton, M 2008, CALD/ARC - Journal Rankings.
- Thornton, M 2008, Victorian Department of Justice - Review of Equal Opportunity Act 1984.
- Thornton, M 2008, 'Review of Exceptions and Exemptions in the Equal Opportunity Act 1995'.
- 17 Law in Context 8-27 reprinted in S P Sathe and Sathya Narayan (eds) Liberty, Equality and Justice: Struggles for a New Social Order, Eastern Book Company, Lucknow, India, 2003, pp 121-136
- Thornton, M 2010, 'Can We Feminise Human Rights?', in Margaret Thornton (ed.), Sex Discrimination in Uncertain Times, ANU ePress, Canberra Australia, pp. 319-345.
- Thornton, M & Luker, T 2010, 'The New Racism in Employment Discrimination: Tales from the Global Economy', Sydney Law Review, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 1-27.
- Thornton, M 2010, 'Women and Discrimination Law', in Patricia Esteal (ed.), Women and the Law in Australia, LexisNexis Butterworths, Sydney, pp. 131-151.
- Thornton, M, ed., 2010, Sex Discrimination in Uncertain Times, ANU ePress, Canberra Australia.
- Thornton, M 2010, ''Post-Feminism' in the Legal Academy?', Feminist Review, vol. 95, no. 95, pp. 92-98.
- Thornton, M & Luker, T 2010, 'Age Discrimination in Turbulent Times', Griffith Law Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 141-171.
- Thornton, M & Luker, T 2010, 'The Sex Discrimination Act and its Rocky Rite of Passage', in Margaret Thornton (ed.), Sex Discrimination in Uncertain Times, ANU ePress, Canberra Australia, pp. 25-45.
- Thornton, M 2010, 'Protecting (Human) Rights', Cultural Heritage Conference 2009, ed. Gretchen Poiner, Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc, Canberra, pp. 105-117.
- Thornton, M 2010, 'Excepting Equality in the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act', Australian Journal of Labour Law, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 240-48.
- Thornton, M 2010, 'The Racial State as Legal Person', Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, vol. 35, pp. 140-146.
- Thornton, M 2009, 'Disabling discrimination legislation: The High Court and judicial activism', Australian Journal of Human Rights, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 1-28.
- Thornton, M & Luker, T 2009, 'The Wages of Sin: Compensation for Indigenous Workers', University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 647-673.
- Thornton, M & Luker, T 2009, 'The Spectral Ground: Religious Belief Discrimination', Macquarie Law Journal, vol. 9, pp. 71-91.
- Thornton, M 2009, 'Academic un-freedom in the new knowledge economy', in Angela Brew and Lisa Lucas (ed.), Academic research and researchers, McGraw-Hill Inc, Maidenhead, England, pp. 19-34.
- Thornton, M 2009, 'Universities Upside Down: The Impact of the New Knowledge Economy', Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 375-393.
- Thornton, M 2008, 'The Retreat from the critical: Social science research in the corporatised university', Australian Universities' Review, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 5-10.
- Thornton, M 2008, 'Public sphere', in Peter Cane and Joanne Conaghan (ed.), The New Oxford Companion to Law, Oxford University Press, New York, USA, pp. 968-969pp.
- Thornton, M 2008, 'The Decline of the Humanities: are the Humanities Being Singled Out?', Journal for the Public University, vol. 5, pp. 1-10.
- Thornton, M 2008, 'The fleeting history of feminism in the legal academy', Pandora's Box, vol. 999, no. 999, pp. 33-38.
- Thornton, M 2008, 'Sex Discrimination, Courts and Corporate Power', Federal Law Review, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 31-56.
- Thornton, M 2008, 'The evisceration of equal employment opportunity in higher education', Australian Universities' Review, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 59-70.
- Thornton, M 2008, Reporting Requirements under the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999, Productivity Commission, Canberra.
- Thornton, M 2007, 'The Law School, the Market and the New Knowledge Economy', Legal Education Review, vol. 17, no. 1&2, pp. 1-26.
- Thornton, M & Bagust, J 2007, 'The Gender Trap: Flexible Work in Corporate Legal Practice', Osgoode Hall Law Journal, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 773-811.
- Thornton, M 2007, ''Otherness' on the Bench: How Merit is Gendered', Sydney Law Review, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 391-413.
- Thornton, M 2007, 'Contemporary Research and the Ambiguity of Critique', Journal for the Public University, vol. 4, pp. 1-14.
- Thornton, M 2007, 'Feminist research in a climate of insecurity', Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 22, no. 52, pp. 3-13.
- Thornton, M 2006, 'The Dissolution of the Social in the Legal Academy', The Australian Feminist Law Journal, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 3-18.
- Thornton, M 2006, 'Reclaiming 'the Public' in the Public UniversityEditor's Introduction', Journal for the Public University, vol. 3, p. 2.
- Thornton, M 2006, 'Feminism and the Changing State: The Case of Sex Discrimination', Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 21, no. 50, pp. 151-172.
- Thornton, M 2005, 'The Australian Legal Profession: Towards a National Identity', in William L f Felstiner (ed.), Reorganization and Resistance: Legal Professions Confront a Changing World, Hart Publishing, North America, pp. 133-169.
- Thornton, M 2005, 'Auditing the Sex Discrimination Act', in Marius Smith (ed.), Human Rights 2004: The Year in Review, Monash University, Monash, pp. 25-56.
- Thornton, M 2005, 'Gothic Horror in the Legal Academy', Social and Legal Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 267-276.
- Thornton, M 2004, 'Rapunzel and the Lure of Equal Citizenship', Law Text Culture, vol. 8, pp. 231-262.
- Thornton, M 2004, 'The Idea of the University and the Contemporary Legal Academy', Sydney Law Review, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 481-502.
- Thornton, M 2004, 'Neo-liberal Melancholia: The Case of Feminist Legal Scholarship', The Australian Feminist Law Journal, vol. 20, pp. 7-22.
- Thornton, M 2004, 'Corrosive Leadership (or Bullying by another Name): A Corollary of the Corporatised Academy?', Australian Journal of Labour Law, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 161-184.
- Thornton, M 2003, 'Neo-Liberalism, Discrimination and the Politics of Ressentiment', in S.P. Sathe & Sathya Narayan (ed.), Liberty, Equality and Justice: Struggles for a New Social Order, Eastern Book Company, India, pp. 121-136.
- Thornton, M 2003, 'Affirmative Action, Merit and Police Recruitment', Alternative Law Journal, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 235-237, 249.
- Thornton, M, ed., 2002, Romancing the Tomes: Popular Culture, Law and Feminism, Cavendish Publishing Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom.
- Thornton, M 2002, 'The Illusion of the 'Real' in Ian Callinan's The Lawyer and the Libertine', in Margaret Thornton (ed.), Romancing the Tomes: Popular Culture, Law and Feminism, Cavendish Publishing Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. 257-267.
- Thornton, M 2002, 'Law and Popular culture: Engendering Legal Vertigo', in Margaret Thornton (ed.), Romancing the Tomes: Popular Culture, Law and Feminism, Cavendish Publishing Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. 3-19.
- Thornton, M 2002, 'Sexual Harassment losing Sight of Sex Discrimination', Melbourne University Law Review, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 422-444.
- Thornton, M 2002, 'Governing the Corporatised Academy', Journal for the Public University, vol. 1, p. 999.
- Thornton, M, ed., 2002, Inhabiting a Political Economy of Uncertainty: Academic Life in the 21st Century, 2.
- Thornton, M 2001, 'EEO in a Neo-Liberal Climate', Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 77-104.
- Thornton, M 2001, 'The Demise of Diversity in Legal Education: Globalisation and the New Knowledge Economy', International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 37-56.
- Thornton, M 2001, 'Among the Ruins: Law in the Neo-Liberal Academy', Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, vol. 20, pp. 3-23.
- Thornton, M 2001, 'Intention to Contract: Public Act or Private Sentiment?', in Ngaire Naffine, Rosemary J. Owens, John Williams (ed.), Intention in Law and Philosophy, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, UK, pp. 217-237.
- Thornton, M 1996, Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- A Roadmap for Respect: Preventing and Addressing Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces (Primary Investigator)
- Markets and the Modern University (Primary Investigator)
- Balancing Law and Life (Primary Investigator)
- EEO in a Culture of Uncertainty (Primary Investigator)
