Associate Professor Guy Charlton is one of the newest academic staff members at the UNE Law School. Guy has experience working in Federal, State and Tribunal courts in the United States. Aside from working as an academic and practising law, Guy has interned and worked in the Ontario legislature, the US House of Representatives and the Hawaii House of Representatives. 

Guy graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in International Relations. He then went to the University of Toronto and earned an MA in International Relations. It was when he was on his way to a PhD in Comparative Politics when he merged into law. Guy went back to the University of Wisconsin, but this time to the Law School. Upon graduating, Guy went into business with a group of friends. During this time, he appeared in Federal, State and Tribunal Courts. 

Guy practiced law as a general practitioner in Wisconsin for 12 years. He moved to Auckland and got his PhD in Law from the University of Auckland under Professor David V. Williams. Besides working at UNE Law School, Guy has also taught at the University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology, City University of Hong Kong and Curtin University. 

Guy is interested in several branches of law including legal history, biodiversity, deforestation, mental health law, human rights and Indigenous law. He will be teaching Indigenous law this trimester in the unit LAW164 – Indigenous Peoples and the Law. Students undertaking this unit will gain a good understanding of the underlying law relating to Indigenous peoples and the legal and philosophical issues and problems with this law. They will also learn case and statutory law relating to Indigenous peoples. Also this trimester, Guy will be teaching LAW101 – Law in Context.  Collectively these two first year units will demonstrate the relationships law has with society, social and economic history, political development and human rights as well as philosophy and justice.  

So far Guy has been enjoying teaching at the UNE School of Law. He is finding his colleagues and students to be very friendly. Something that you may not know about Guy is that during high school and college he ran a horse riding stable in Northern Wisconsin. 

Written by Caitlin Picker