Research biography

Dr Anthony Hopkins is an Associate Professor at the ANU College of Law and Chair of the Reconciliation Action Plan Committee, having joined the ANU in 2015. In 2018, Anthony received a Vice-Chancellor's citation for outstanding contribution to student learning in recognition of his innovative teaching approaches designed to take students as close as possible to the coalface of legal practice. Anthony began his career as a criminal defence lawyer in Alice Springs at the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service. He practiced as criminal defence barrister from 2010 until 2021 when he was appointed as a Special Magistrate of the ACT Magistrates Court, where he works with Elders in the Galambany Circle Sentencing Court. Anthony’s research is focused on colonialism, inequality and marginalisation as they shape, intersect with and are compounded by the criminal justice system. This work begins with recognising the importance of listening to and understanding the experiences of those caught in that system, and depends upon self-reflection and a willingness to recognise settler-colonial and other forms of privilege that shape dominant views of reality. Anthony has a particular focus on decarceration and reforms designed to reduce criminal justice system involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. More recently he has focused on exploring the links between therapeutic jurisprudence, equality and compassion, where compassion is understood as the foundation that motivates and enables turning towards those who are caught in the criminal justice system and as a guiding principle for system redesign.

Books & edited collections

• Anthony Hopkins, Belonging - A Novel (Stringybark Publications, 2020).
• John Anderson and Anthony Hopkins, Uniform Evidence Law Guidebook (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Refereed journal articles

• Henshaw, M, Bartels, L & Hopkins, A (2019) 'Set Up to Fail? Examining Australian Parole Compliance Laws Through a Therapeutic Jurisprudence Lens', University of Western Australia Law Review, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 107-136.
• Henshaw M, Bartels L and Hopkins A (2019) ‘COMMIT-ing is just the beginning: Applying therapeutic jurisprudence to reform parole in Australia’. University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol 42, no. 4, pp. 1411-1442.
• Hopkins A, Bartels L and Oxman L (2019), ‘Lessons in flexibility: Introducing a prison yoga program in Australia’, International Journal of Crime Justice and Social Democracy.
• Bartels L, Oxman L and Hopkins A, (2019) ‘“I would just feel really relaxed and at peace”: findings from a pilot prison yoga program in Australia’, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.
• Hopkins A, Carline A and Easteal P (2018), ‘Equal Consideration and Informed Imagining: Recognising and Responding to the Lived Experiences of Abused Women Who Kill’, Melbourne University Law Review, 41: 1201-1236.
• King C, Bartels L, Easteal P and Hopkins A (2016), ‘Did defensive homicide in Victoria provide a safety net for battered women who kill? A case study analysis’, Monash University Law Review, 32: 138-178.
• Anthony T, Bartels L and Hopkins A (2015), ‘Lessons lost in sentencing: Welding individualised justice to Indigenous justice’, Melbourne University Law Review, 39: 1-28.
• Hoitink D and Hopkins A (2015), 'Divergent approaches to the admissibility of tendency evidence in New South Wales and Victoria: The risk of adopting a more permissive approach’, Criminal Law Journal 39: 303-325.
• Hopkins A (2012), ‘The Relevance of Aboriginality in Sentencing: Sentencing a Person for Who they Are’, Australian Indigenous Law Review 16(1): 37-52.
• Hopkins A (2009), ‘Teaching Evidence Law within the Framework of a Trial: Relating Theory to Practice as Students Take to Their Feet and Take Responsibility for the Trial Narrative’, Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association, 2(1&2): 173-184.

Book chapters

• Bartels L and Hopkins A, ‘Engaging head and heart: An Australian story on the role of compassion in criminal justice reform’ in S Bandes et al (eds), Research handbook on law and emotion, Edward Elgar. Forthcoming.
• Hopkins A and Bartels L (2019) ‘Paying attention to the person: Compassion, equality and therapeutic jurisprudence’ in N Stobbs, L Bartels and M Vols (eds), The methodology and practice of therapeutic jurisprudence, Carolina Academic Press.
• Lewis C, Hopkins A and Bartels L (2013), ‘The relevance of Aboriginality in sentencing: Findings from interviews in the ACT, in P Easteal (ed), Justice connections, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 37-59.
• Easteal, P and Hopkins (2010) ‘Women and criminal defences to homicide’ in P Easteal (ed) Women and the Law, LexisNexis, 109-130.

Conference papers & presentations

• ‘Open-hearted justice: The role of compassion in reforming crime policy’, International Academy of Law and Mental Health, Rome, July 2019.
• ‘Learning to Listen to Indigenous Experience in Sentencing: Lessons from Canada to inform the ‘Indigenous Experience Report’ trial in the Australian Capital Territory’, Australian National University, College of Law Research Series, July 2019.
• ‘Learning from Gladue: Slow steps towards listening to Indigenous experience in sentencing in Australia, 7th National Conference on Indigenous Criminal Justice post-Gladue, Osgoode Hall, Toronto, April 2019.
• ‘Engaging head and heart: The role of emotion in criminal justice reform’, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, February 2019.
• ‘Compassion in clinical legal education: recognising the clinic as a site for realising compassion’, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Conference, Melbourne, November 2018.
• ‘Engaging head and heart: The role of emotion in criminal justice reform’, Critical Criminology and Social Justice Conference, Sydney, September 2018
• ‘Yoga as a wellbeing intervention in the Alexander Maconochie Centre: Findings from a pilot program’, Justice Connections 5 Symposium, Canberra, June 2018 (with L Bartels and L Oxman).
• ‘Yoga as a wellbeing intervention in an Australian prison: A pilot program’, 30th Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Conference, Canberra, December 2017 (with L Bartels and L Oxman).
• ‘Compassion as a foundation for promoting equality before the law’, 35th International Congress on Law and Mental Health, Prague, July 2017.
• 'Let’s talk about compassion as the foundation of a solution focus in sentencing', 2nd Non-Adversarial Justice Conference, Sydney, April 2017.
• ‘Compassion as a foundation for giving equal consideration in criminal justice law reform’, National Law Reform Conference, Canberra, April 2016.
• ‘Meeting the challenge of Bugmy: Using Gladue-style reports to link the story of the people to the story of the person’, National Indigenous Legal Conference 2016, Australian National University, 6 September 2016.
• ‘Compassion as a foundation for giving equal consideration in criminal justice law reform’, National Law Reform Conference, Australian National University, 14 April 2016.
• ‘Justice as Wellbeing in Prison: The Potential of Vipassana Meditation’, Justice Connections IV Symposium, Australian National University, 20 November 2015.
• ‘Sentencing Aboriginal offenders in Australia and Canada: A comparative analysis, International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law Conference on Sentencing and Corrections, Vancouver, June 2014.
• ‘Controlling Leading Questions in the Cross-Examination of Aboriginal Witnesses: The Legal Position in Practice in Alice Springs’, combined conference of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia, Applied Linguistics Association of New Zealand and Australian Linguistic Society, Australian National University, 1-2 December 2011).
• ‘Aboriginality in Sentencing – Sentencing a Person for Who They Are’, Fifth National Indigenous Legal Conference, Australian National University, 1-2 October 2010.

Government submissions

• Anthony Hopkins, Submission No 9 to Australian Capital Territory Legislative Standing Committee, Inquiry into Sentencing, 14 October 2013.
• Patricia Easteal and Anthony Hopkins, Submission No 36 to Australian Law Reform Commission, Family Violence and Commonwealth Laws, 12 May 2010.

Books & edited collections

• Doctor of Philosophy in Law
• Anthony Hopkins (2015) ‘Equality before the law: the importance of understanding the experience of ‘others’ in the criminal justice system’.

Currently supervising

• Benjamin Ettinger

  Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

  Topic: Legal Method, Cartels and Public Monopolies: A View From the High Court 1908 - 1948

PhD supervision

I am willing to supervise in the areas:

• Criminal Law and Justice
• Sentencing
• Indigenous peoples and the Criminal Law
• Evidence Law

Honours thesis supervision

I am willing to supervise in the areas:

• Criminal Law and Justice
• Sentencing
• Indigenous peoples and the Criminal Law
• Evidence Law

I have previously supervised:

• Criminal Law and Justice
• Evidence Law

Currently courses

Previous courses

Philosophy & approach

Often the practical and moral importance of university learning is only realised when that learning is put in action. And, in terms of the law, too often this does not occur until the newly graduated are faced with the responsibility of making decisions that affect the lives of their clients, other participants in the legal process, and the wider community. With a rapidly expanding case load, it can be too late by then to learn the lessons missed. This creates an imperative: to take students, so far as possible, to the 'coalface' of practice, in order to inspire in them a sense of real purpose and relevance so they don't miss the opportunity that university learning offers.

Adopting this approach to teaching, Anthony endeavours to explicitly link theory and practice, and harness the potential of experiential learning. Anthony takes the view that experiential learning is critical to the development of important graduate attributes associated with the practice of law, but is also essential to developing students' capacity to critique and challenge existing laws, legal structures and processes.

Anthony's experiential approach to teaching Evidence Law resulted in a University of Canberra Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2010, and was the subject of a conference paper that received and award for the Best Legal Education Conference Paper at the Australasian Law Teachers Association Conference in 2009. This paper was subsequently published as,

• Anthony Hopkins, ‘Teaching Evidence Law within the Framework of a Trial: Relating Theory to Practice as Students Take to Their Feet and Take Responsibility for the Trial Narrative’ (2009) 2(1&2) Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association 173.

Anthony's experiential learning approach has also been incorporated into a student focused text on the Uniform Evidence Law:

• John Anderson and Anthony Hopkins, Uniform Evidence Law Guidebook (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Past courses

• Criminal Law and Procedure
• Evidence Law
• Indigenous Australians and the Law
• Advocacy
• Sentencing
• Prison Legal Literacy
• Kimberley Aboriginal Justice Clinic/Internship
• Legal Education for True Justice: Indigenous Perspectives and Deep Listening on Country