Emeritus Professor Bernadette McSherry

Emeritus Professor Bernadette McSherry is an Emeritus Professor of Law at The University of Melbourne. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a Master of Law from The University of Melbourne. She also holds a PhD in Law from York University in Canada, and a Graduate diploma of Psychology from Monash University.  Her areas of expertise are mental health law and criminal law, and she has published widely in these fields.

After working as a solicitor at Coltmans in Melbourne and as an Associate for the then Justice James Gobbo at the Supreme Court of Victoria, Professor McSherry commenced her academic career in the Monash Law School in 1991. She was appointed in 2005 to the position of Louis Waller Chair of Law and Associate Dean (Research) and in 2007 was awarded a prestigious Federation Fellowship from the Australian Research Council. She became the Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Law and Mental Health in June 2011. In the same year, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

In 2013, Professor McSherry was appointed the Foundation Director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, where she supported interdisciplinary research at the University of Melbourne until June 2021. Professor McSherry has a strong interest in research and advocacy that helps improve legal and mental health systems, having been a Commissioner with the Victorian Law Reform Commission from 2018 to mid-2026. From February 2019 to February 2021, she served as a Commissioner with the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. Professor McSherry also worked as a legal member of the Mental Health Tribunal of Victoria from 2001 to July 2018.

Largely due to the availability of secondary school scholarships and an era of free tertiary education, Professor McSherry and her siblings were the first in her family to attend university. She is forever grateful for that opportunity and is a strong believer in Monash University’s motto, ancora imparo - I am still learning.