About
Caroline’s research interests lie primarily in Health Care Law, and historically in Family Law.
She is particularly interested in the processes of production of law and its broader impact, especially the role of test case litigation in shaping Health Care Law. Caroline has explored hidden law-making in this context with Hazel Biggs (Emeritus, University of Southampton) and Jonathan Montgomery (UCL); has reflected on biographical approaches to the study of test cases (with Montgomery); and work on litigation strategies in healthcare contexts is ongoing.
In addition, she has a keen interest in the legal, ethical and regulatory issues arising from the development and use of AI in healthcare contexts. She has worked with Jeremy C Wyatt (Southampton); James Thornton (Nottingham Trent); Age Chapman (Southampton); Rose Worley (Swansea/independent); and Chloe L Harrison (Adferiad Recovery) on projects in this area. The team recently completed a BA/Leverhulme funded project exploring issues of trust and trustworthiness around the use of AI in mental health services. Their findings have been presented at several conferences, including the SLSA annual conference (2023, 2024), and The Web Conference (forthcoming May 2024, Singapore), and the team are currently writing up this work for publication.
Caroline’s earlier research focused on public policy formation and socio-legal constructions of parenthood and kinship. She retains a firm interest in issues around donor conception, identity, surrogacy, cloning, and the regulation of assisted conception more broadly.
She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.