Dr Gillian Baker

Gillian is a court solicitor with 24 years of experience and a special interest in the interaction between family law, domestic abuse and access to justice. Gillian started her own firm in 2003, initially providing legal services to women affected by domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence via legal surgeries based within women's aid groups and other third sector organisations, before opening offices in Blantyre and then Hamilton. She headed up a domestic abuse legal project in 2007/08 under a Scottish Executive Community Safety Partnership Award, and from 2014 -19 ran a BIG Lottery funded domestic abuse legal advice project in Stirling while on sabbatical from her firm.

Gillian returned to work in her firm in 2019, and last year completed a PhD funded by Edinburgh Napier University. Gillian's doctoral research examines mother's experiences of Scottish child contact cases involving allegations of domestic abuse and reveals key barriers to the application of the 'abuse provisions', introduced in 2006 to the 1995 Act.

Gillian was a tutor on the Business and Financial Awareness course on the Diploma in Legal Practice at the University of Strathclyde, and on the Family Law course at Edinburgh Napier University. Her practice to date comprises a mix of private and legal aid family casework, Child Welfare Reports and partnership work with the statutory and third sectors delivering specialist, trauma-informed legal services to women experiencing domestic abuse.