The 2009 McPherson Lectures Series was presented by Professor Sarah Worthington on the 9, 11 and 12 March 2009 at the Banco Court, Supreme Court Building, Brisbane.

Professor Worthington presented three lectures in the Series under the topic, 'Equity and Property: Fact, Fantasy and Morals'.

This series of three lectures examined the contributions that equity has made to the law of personal property, and thus to the modern workings of the commercial world and its markets.  The aim was to demonstrate the substantial and ingenious contributions that equity has made to modern commerce, and to reflect on its potential future directions.

The first lecture 'Property and Trade' explored the mechanisms equity adopted to expand the range of interests that could be classed as property, and therefore be traded nationally and internationally on commercial markets, thus becoming new forms of personal wealth. 

The second lecture 'Property and Value' assessed the practical and doctrinal limits of equity's expansion of the notion of property, and considerd the potential pitfalls in developing commercial markets in assets that do not have all the orthodox attributes of property and so may be difficult or impossible to value.  This assessment has particular resonance in the current financial climate. 

The final lecture 'Property and Justice' in this series examined equity’s contributions to the resolution of conflicting rights to different forms of personal property, especially in a commercial or market context.  

The 2009 series will form a published monograph available to purchase toward the end of 2009. Please refer to the monographs page for Publishers contact details.

About the Speaker Professor Sarah Worthington Professor Sarah Worthington is a Professor of Law and Pro-Director for Research and External Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a barrister at 3/4 South Square, Gray's Inn, London.  She is a commercial lawyer with a particular interest in commercial equity, personal property and securities law, and corporate governance.  She studied science ANU and law at the Universities of Queensland, Melbourne and Cambridge, and taught at the University of Melbourne before moving to the UK.  She has acted as a consultant to the National Companies and Securities Commission (before it became the Australian Securities Commission), the Australian Law Reform Commission and the English Law Commission, and has been a member of working groups on the Bank of England's Financial Markets Law Committee, the UK's DTI Company Law Review, and the Advisory Council for the Study Group for a European Civil Code.  She was President of the Society of Legal Scholars for the UK and Ireland in 2007-8.

Professor Sarah Worthington