Description

This paper explores the interaction of statute law with judge-made trusts law against the backdrop of the Australian federal system of government. The speaker will highlight ways in which this interaction brings into clearer focus the distinctive policy objectives that underpin judge-made trusts law, as well as ways in which judge-made trusts law has identified and addressed social problems in advance of Australian statute law. In doing so, he considers charitable trusts, trusts of the family home, and trading trusts.

About the Speaker

Matthew Harding is an internationally recognised expert on private law and the law of charities and other not-for-profit organisations. His published work combines theoretical, doctrinal and practical insights. He has published extensively on topics in the theory and doctrines of equity (especially fiduciary law), charity and not-for-profit law and regulation, the law of property, judicial practice and precedent, and the philosophy of trust and trustworthiness.

Matthew is the author of a major monograph on the theoretical foundations of charity law, Charity Law and the Liberal State (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and has edited or co-edited a number of leading collections: Exploring Private Law (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Not-for-Profit Law: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2014); The Research Handbook of Not-for-Profit Law (Edward Elgar, 2018); Fiduciaries and Trust: Ethics, Politics, Economics and Law (Cambridge University Press, 2020); Trusts Law in the Asia-Pacific: Theory and Practice in Context (Hart Publishing, 2021); and Charity Law: Exploring the Concept of Public Benefit (Routledge, 2021). Matthew has published in the world’s pre-eminent law journals including the Law Quarterly Review, the Modern Law Review and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and is a frequent contributor to leading academic collections.

Matthew has held numerous leadership roles both within the Melbourne Law School and in the wider legal and academic communities. He was Deputy Dean and Head of Department of the Melbourne Law School from 2016 to 2020, and for several years was a director of the MLS Obligations Group. Matthew is currently the Chair of the Charity Law Association of Australia and New Zealand, an editor of the Journal of Equity, a member of the editorial boards of Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory and the Third Sector Review, and a member of the Charities Committee of the Law Council of Australia.

Matthew graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1998 with first class honours degrees in law and in arts. He also holds a Bachelor of Civil Law degree (with distinction) and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. During his time as a postgraduate student in Oxford, Matthew held Chevening and Clarendon Fund Scholarships and, during 2002–3, a research fellowship funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation. His DPhil thesis was on the moral foundations of fiduciary law. Before joining the Melbourne Law School in 2005, Matthew also worked as a solicitor for Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks (now Allens) in Melbourne, and he holds a current practising certificate.