Biography
Felicity Gerry QC is admitted in England and Wales and Australia and has had ad hoc admission in Hong Kong and Gibraltar. She specializes in serious and complex crime, often with an international element and increasingly with a corporate overlap, particularly in the context of terrorism, murder and money laundering. She led the defence team in R v Jogee, the ground - breaking murder appeal in the UK Supreme Court which held that the form of accessorial liability known as ‘joint enterprise’ was an erroneous tangent of law. The BBC described the judgment as ‘a moment of genuine legal history’. She has appeared in the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong (Chan Kam-shing 2016) and the High Court of Australia (Van Beelan 2017). She was Solicitors Journal Legal Personality of the Year for 2016 and has been ranked as a leading silk in the Legal 500 described as follows: ‘she appears in complex appeal cases’ and ‘well respected for national and international appellate issues’ and in Chambers and Partners as ‘A vastly experienced advocate noted for her experience in serious sexual cases, homicides and frauds’. She is a member of International Bar Association (IBA) and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA). Felicity is appointed a Member of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Felicity is Professor of Legal Practice at Deakin University, an Adjunct Fellow at Charles Darwin University and Adjunct Fellow at the University of Western Sydney. She is also an affiliated Member of the Research group on Fundamental Rights and Constitutionalism at the Vrije Universiteit, Brussel. She has lectured on Terrorism, Cybercrime, Transnational Law, International Criminal Law, Science and Law, Criminology and Feminist Legal Theory and Sexual offending and has provided training in the Bangladesh Judiciary Management Project on Terrorism and Money Laundering.
Felicity is also a member of a Research Group for interdisciplinary research on mathematics and law as a PhD candidate. Her research and publications focus on the fields of women & law, technology & law and reforming justice systems, particularly in the context of vulnerability and disability. This includes The Sexual Offences Handbook (3rd Ed forthcoming), Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Law and Practice (2018), Human Trafficking Emerging Legal Issues and Applications (2017) and the Fourth volume in the European Integration and Democracy Series, devoted to Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Relations as a Challenge for Democracy (2017). Felicity has provided training to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association as part of the The Modern Slavery Project which is a two -year multilateral project providing practical advice and support to Commonwealth legislatures in the pursuit of combatting modern slavery. Her submissions and evidence on behalf of Civil Liberties Australia were accepted by Parliamentary Inquiry into establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia. She also led a four year project on women in prison for Halsbury’s Law Exchange (part of the Lexis Nexis group) and leads a small Indigenous Justice Exoneration Project.
Internationally Felicity contributes to Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals (ALC) and contributed to the ICC Moot Court Manual for the IBA. She chaired the televised G20 Gender Equality forum at ANU in Canberra which prepared the report for the Sherpas to the G20 leaders and has appeared in the BAFTA nominated FGM documentary The Cruel Cut, ABC Foreign Correspondent's documentary Saving Mary Jane , BBC 3 Series ‘Sex on the Edge’, Channel 5 Documentaries on the April Jones and Sarah Payne child murders and on all major news channels including ABC, BBC News, Sky News, Russia Today and Al Jazeera.
Biography summary
Felicity Gerry QC is Professor of Legal Practice (.4) at Deakin University where she lectures on Criminal Law and Modern Slavery and is involved in the Clinical programs, including developing a unit on Indigenous Justice. She researches issues relating to women & law, technology & law and reforming justice systems with a particular emphasis on using technology to combat human trafficking in organised crime.
Felicity is also an international QC at Crockett Chambers, Melbourne and Carmelite Chambers, London. She is admitted in England and Wales and Australia and has had ad hoc admission in Hong Kong and Gibraltar. She was Legal Personality of the Year 2016 and has been recognised in the Legal 500 as a leading silk and as “Fearless and independent minded”. She led the appeal that corrected the law on joint enterprise in the UK Supreme Court, described by the BBC as a ‘moment of genuine legal history’ and has had appeals in the High Court of Australia and the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong. She recently led a team of academics and practitioners who were given leave to file an Amicus Curiae Brief in the ICTY Radovan Karadzic Appeal.
She runs a small Indigenous Justice and Exoneration Project and is on the Executive Committee of the International,Commission of Jurists Victoria.
Research interests
Using technology to combat human trafficking - particularly in relation to women and girls in organised crime
Women and Law
Vunerability and Law
Reforming Justice Systems
Affiliations
Current
• Executive Committee Member, International Commission of Jurists, Victoria.
• Legal member of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in the Northern Territory of Australia.
• Member of Female Fraud Forum and Fraud Lawyers Association.
• Member of the Research Unit for interdisciplinary research on mathematics and law
• Affiliated Member of Research group on Fundamental Rights and Constitutionalism at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
• JUSTICE working party on fair trial rights
• Member of International Bar Association.
• Member of Commonwealth Lawyers Association.
• Member of the International Section of the Law Council of Australia.
• Member of Management Committee for The Advocates Gateway preparing toolkits for advocacy with vulnerable people.
• Member of Everywoman Everywhere Coalition.
• Member of Expert Reflection Group (Trafficking as a Criminal Enterprise).
• Member of European Migration Research Platform
Felicity Gerry QC CV January 2018 6
• Member of UK Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association.
• Professional Board Member, Computer Law & Security Review (Elsevier) (CLSR).
• Board Member Halsbury’s Law Exchange – a politically independent legal think tank engaged in writing articles and contributing to policy
papers.
Past
• Chair Corrugated Iron Youth Arts, Darwin, Australia.
• Vice President, Criminal Lawyers Association of the Northern Territory of Australia.
• Member of 2017 International Conference Committee (2015 Chair) for The Advocates Gateway
• Associate Editor and Reviewer: International Journal of Issues in Legal Scholarship (ILS).
• Contributed to JUSTICE report on Mental Health and Fair Trial.
• Member of Expert Group on Procedural Rights, Fair Trials International.
• Member of UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Rape and Sexual Violence.
• Panel member of Baroness Stern’s Rape and serious sexual offences UK Parliamentary group.
• 2013 Bar Council South Eastern Circuit Representative.
• Part of team providing legal advice and assistance for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games. Specialisms: Sexual offending and
defamation.
• 2012 Bar Council for England and Wales Public Affairs Committee.
• 2004 to 2008 Chair of 36 Bedford Row Marketing Committee.
• 2000 to 2004 Midland Circuit Committee, Leicester Representative.
• First woman to write comment piece for CL&JW in its (then) 175 year history.
Teaching interests
National, Transnational and International Criminal Law
Terrorism, cybercrime and human trafficking / modern slavery.
Women & Law
Technology, Science & Law
Reforming Justice Systems
Communication and Vulnerability in Court
Evidence Law, Particularly propensity / tendency.
Units taught
April 2018 to present
Professor of Legal Practice, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
• MLL214 Criminal Law.
• Developing Modern Slavery Unit and Indigenous Justice Law Clinic.
January 2017 to present:
Adjunct Fellow School of Law, University Western Sydney, Australia.
• 200704 Independent Study A (Law): Terrorism, Sexual Offending and Cybercrime.
• Delivering section of Bangladesh Judiciary Management Project and Research Programme on Terrorism, Money Laundering, Issues in
International Law and Links between Financing Organisations and Trans-national Crime (including illegal wildlife trade).
1st July 2013 to present:
School of Law, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia
• Currently Adjunct Fellow and PhD candidate.
• Formerly Senior Lecturer and Unit Development / Coordinator / Research Supervision.
o Supervision of student research (approved to Associate PhD level)
o Master of Laws Program: International Criminal Law and Transnational Law.
o Undergraduate Law Degree: ‘Law, Justice and the State’, Transnational Law, Evidence Law and Science and Law.
o Previously: Advanced Criminal Law, Criminology, Criminal Law, Torts, Practical Advocacy and Dispute Resolution. o Legal Clinic: Indigenous Justice Stream and Reprieve Australia Externship.
• Member of the Unit Review Committee for CUC107 Cultural Intelligence and Capabilities.
• 2014 to 2016 Chair of Research and Research Training Committee.
• 2014 to 2016 Member of the Law School Learning and Teaching committee.
• 2015 HDR coordinator.
Conferences
Conferences organised
• 2017 The Advocates Gateway International Conference: Access to Justice for Vulnerable People.
• 2016 CDU Research Workshop and Student Showcase: Health and Law.
• 2016 CDU/ Menzies School of Health Child Rights Forum.
• 2016 CDU Research Workshop and Student Showcase: Empowering First Nations People through Law and Policy.
• 2016 CDU Research Workshop and Student Showcase: Transnational Law.
• 2016 Lexis Nexis: Women in prison: Is the Justice System Fit For Purpose
• 2015 The Advocates Gateway International Conference: Addressing Vulnerability in Justice Systems
• 2014 Lexis Nexis: Women in prison: Is the Penal System Fit For Purpose
• 2012 Exeter University / SOAS and 36 Group: To Iraq and Beyond.
• 2010 Open University and 36 Group: Corporate Manslaughter.
Conferences speaker – Women and Law
Conferences
• 2018 ‘Experiences of cases involving sexual offending – an international perspective’ (Paper presented at the Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine Annual Conference, Royal College of Physicians, London, 12 May 2018).
• 2018 ‘A Call to Act to End FGM’ (Presentation at Panel discussion at the Royal College of Midwives, London, 24 May 2018).
• 2017 Commonwealth Lawyers Conference: Human Trafficking and Forced Marriage – the continuing need for collective social standards and
rules.
• 2016 International Criminal Law Congress: Human Trafficking, Drug Trafficking and the Death Penalty
• 2016 International expert meeting: Future of Women in International Law, Griffith University.
• 2016 Oxford Criminology 50th Anniversary Panel on Women in Prison
• 2016 2nd Law Scholar’s Writing Colloquium, Universitas Indonesia. Paper chosen as Editor’s Choice for Indonesian Law Review. Human
Trafficking, Drug Trafficking and the Death Penalty.
• 2016 FGM is Everybody’s Business: Australian Human Rights Commission. FGM and the Law.
Conferences speaker – Technology and Law
• 2016 Biometrics 2016: Using Technology to Combat Human Trafficking.
• 2015 ICELFS: Access to extraterritorial evidence: The Microsoft cloud case and beyond
• 2015 8th International CPDP conference, Brussels: “Using technology to combat human trafficking”.
• 2014 CILS International Cooperation conference, Jakarta: “Using technology to combat human trafficking”.
• 2014 Sensor Society Conference, Brisbane: “The Rule of Law Online; You can’t steal cakes that Google haven’t baked”
• 2014 4th Sino-Australian Law Deans’ Meeting, Zhejiang University, Guanghua Law School, Hangzhou, China: “Using innovative technology in
international legal education”.
Conferences speaker – Lawyers, Justice and Penal Systems
• 2018 Criminal Cases Review Commission Lecture Series – Have the Appellate Courts Lost sight of Justice in joint enterprise appeals?
• 2017 IBA Conference Sydney Keynote Address for Corporate litigation section: Towards Global Corporate Criminal Liability
• 2017 Hong Kong University Centre for Comparative and Public Law Why the Kim Jong-nam assassination raises the need for a human
trafficking framework.
• 2016 Spectacular Law Conference, Hong Kong University – Jogee, the last gasp of Colonialism?
• 2016 Hong Kong Bar: Resilience and opportunities.
• 2016 and 2014 Lexis Nexis Women in Prison.
Professional activities
Felicity is an international QC at Crockett Chambers, Melbourne (profile at VicBar website: https://www.vicbar.com.au/profile/8474)
Felicity is an international QC at Carmelite Chambers, London (profile at http://www.carmelitechambers.co.uk/members/felicity-gerry-qc).
Felicity's full profile and media experience can be found at www.felicitygerry.com
Media appearances
Felicity has numerous media appearances. For further information go to www.felicitygerry.com
Awards
2016 NT Human Rights Award for Justice (organisations and groups) as a member of the Making Justice Work Coalition.
2016 Legal Personality of the Year: UK Solicitors Journal 160th Anniversary awards.
2015 CDU Ryan Family Award for commitment to excellence, outstanding results in research and innovative teaching approaches. It was recognised that “Felicity has played key roles in the development of international partnerships and has contributed to important outcomes in the region”.
Projects
Project for the International Commission of Jurists on Defences for Human Trafficking Victims who commit crime.
Leads the ‘Indigenous Justice and Exoneration Project’ which examines legal issues for Aboriginal prisoners serving 10 yrs or more.
Australia National Data Service grant to digitize Euthanasia Law Collection (in partnership). Expert on EU Commission innovation grant on rights of children with mental disabilities.
Chief Investigator (1 of 3) on collaborative project with Menzies School of Health Research and CDU School of Health on ‘Women’s Health and the Law: FGM and TOP’.
Four Year Project on Women in Prison for Lexis Nexis.
Innovation Grant to pilot an “Innocence” style project.
Small grant funded project completed on human trafficking in ASEAN.
Publications
No publications found
Funded Projects at Deakin
Other Public Sector Funding
Understanding the Experiences of Women Modern Slavery Survivors in the Victorian Criminal Justice System
Prof Felicity Gerry KC
Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner - Grants program
- 2022: $68,000
Supervisions
No completed student supervisions to report