Associate Professor Kelly Purser

Associate Professor, Faculty of Business and Law

PhD (University of New England), Bachelor of Arts / Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) (University of New England)

Dr Purser joined the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 2011. She is an active member of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research ('ACHLR'). She co-established and co-leads the Planning for Healthy Ageing Program, nested within ACHLR. Her research explores:

• capacity assessment;
• the intersection between legal and health professionals assessing capacity;
• access to justice where there has been an abuse of enduring documents;
• elder law;
• ageing;
• estate planning;
• succession law; and
• trusts and equity.

She has both published and presented nationally as well as internationally. Her research monographs, Capacity Assessment and the Law: Problems and Solutions (2017) and The Human Rights of Older Persons: A Human Rights-Based Approach to Elder Law (2020, co-authored), explore novel issues in relation to capacity assessment best practice and the application of a human rights framework to elder law respectively. Her work has been referenced by the Law Reform Committee, Parliament of Victoria (2010), the Australian Law Reform Committee’s final report into elder abuse (2017), and the final report of the Law Council of Australia’s Justice Project (2018). It has also been cited by tribunals and courts. Dr Purser has received funding to explore individual experiences of capacity assessments, and elder abuse. She was also part of a team who received funding from ADA Australia to explore access to justice for (alleged) victims of abuse of enduring powers of attorney, and has just co-authored a report for the Financial Planning Association of Australia on elder financial abuse. Dr Purser's research informs her delivery of the undergraduate succession law unit at QUT. She also teaches into the equity and trusts unit. She has previously designed and implemented estate planning and elder law masters units. She was admitted as a solicitor in 2004 in Queensland, New South Wales and the High Court of Australia. When in practice she worked in a variety of areas, specialising in estate planning. She retains strong ties to the legal community and is a member of the Succession Law Committee of the Queensland Law Society, as well as the Society for Trust and Estate Practitioners Capacity Global Special Interest Group Steering Committee. Dr Purser has been invited to design and deliver workshops on capacity assessment best practice, elder abuse and substitute decision-making for legal and health professionals.

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