Dr Victoria Baumfield

Research interests

Dr Victoria Baumfield is an Assistant Professor at Bond University Faculty of Law, Gold Coast, Australia, where her teaching and research are primarily focused on the areas of corporate law and corporate governance.  Victoria has a special interest in the governance of government business enterprises, in particular in monopolistic circumstances such as water supply.  In this capacity, Victoria has become a trusted source of commentary for journalists who report on issues surrounding the pricing and organization of Southeast Queensland's water supply.  Victoria also co-teaches the Foundations of United States Law elective, and regularly includes comparative law elements (comparing US and Australian legal approaches) in her published work.  Due to her interest in comparative law, Victoria was a founding member of the Global and Comparative Law and Policy Network (formerly the Transnational, International and Comparative Law and Policy Network), hosted by Bond University.  Victoria is also an active member and current member of the Steering Committee of Daughters of Themis International Network of Female Business Scholars, based at the University of Oslo.Victoria received her PhD in law from the University of Queensland in 2021.  Her doctoral thesis concerned the governance and accountability of state-owned enterprises in Australia.  Victoria received her BA in International Relations and French from the University of Pennsylvania and her Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law, both Ivy League universities. She was admitted to the New York Bar in 1998. Victoria entered academia in 2008 after moving to Australia with her Australian husband. She previously spent almost a decade in practice at the renowned Wall Street law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP. While in practice, Victoria represented major banking and financial service sector clients including the American International Group, Citibank, JP Morgan, Barclays Bank, Zurich Reinsurance North America, Swiss Re, and others in litigations and arbitrations over matters as diverse as multi-billion dollar reinsurance disputes, political risk insurance claims, antitrust (competition law) matters, and even the defence of claims arising from the conduct of banks that operated in occupied France during the Second World War. Victoria has published articles and book chapters on matters of corporate law, corporate governance and corporate law theory in leading Australian corporate law journals and volumes by respected publishers including the Cambridge University Press and Routledge.  Her recent book chapter, included in the Cambridge Handbook of Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability (2019), assessed the extent to which Australian corporate governance systems support sustainability principles.  Her most recent book chapter on interdisciplinary research in law was just published (2022) in an edited volume on interdisciplinary research methodologies.  Her works in progress include multiple law journal articles on corporate law topics as well as a forthcoming book chapter on social enterprise in Australia.  Victoria is also in the process of converting her doctoral thesis, Locating the Public in Australian Public Enterprise: Reinforcing the Public Objectives and Public Accountability of Australian Government-Owned Businesses, into a book.