Academic profile
Chelsie S. A. Lim — Lecturer of Law and incoming PhD candidate.
I am a Lecturer of Law at William College, a Bath Spa University partner, and an incoming PhD candidate at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. My doctoral research, fully funded by the Dickson Poon School of Law, examines stratified reproduction across two jurisdictions through a reproductive justice and feminist bioethics lens. I hold an MA in Medical Ethics and Law (Distinction) from King’s College London and an LLB (First Class Honours) from the University of Bristol, and was awarded the 2023/24 Dickson Poon School of Law Prizes for Best Dissertation and Best Student on the MA in Medical Ethics and Law.
Doctoral project
Stratified reproduction across two jurisdictions.
I examine how assisted reproduction law in the United Kingdom and Singapore constructs the “suitable parent” — and how apparently neutral legal and technological systems can reproduce inequality.
Biography
My work focuses on assisted reproduction law, reproductive justice, and comparative legal analysis across the United Kingdom and Singapore. My doctoral project examines how law and policy shape access, autonomy, and ideas of parental suitability.
I examine how statutory frameworks, regulatory guidance, funding criteria, clinical discretion, and emerging technologies shape access to assisted reproduction, with attention to class, marital status, sexuality, and disability.
I am qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. Alongside my research, I teach law and legal skills in higher education.
Research interests
- assisted reproduction law
- comparative law
- reproductive justice
- decolonial legal theory
- UK law
- Singapore law
Education
LLB (First Class Honours)
Teaching
Current teaching and professional background.
Lecturer of Law and Module Leader
I am currently a Lecturer of Law at William College, a Bath Spa University partner, where I deliver lectures and seminars across core LLB and Foundation LLB modules, including criminal law, the English legal system, introduction to law, and introduction to legal practice.
Dual-qualified solicitor
I am qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. My legal training included corporate and commercial law, employment-related matters, contract drafting, and exposure to civil litigation.
SQE and student-centred teaching
I also tutor SQE 1 and 2 candidates, with an emphasis on structured answer frameworks, practical question-solving, and pastoral support for students preparing for high-pressure professional examinations.
Research
Stratified reproduction and the “suitable parent”: assisted reproduction law and practice in the UK and Singapore.
My doctoral project asks how assisted reproduction law produces the figure of the “suitable parent”. It examines how legal rules, funding systems, clinical protocols, and technical claims of objectivity can encourage reproduction in some groups while marginalising others.
Whose reproduction does the law treat as a future to be supported, and whose as a risk to be managed?
The project compares two contrasting regulatory systems. In the UK, it focuses on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, the welfare of the child principle, and uneven access to NHS-funded fertility treatment. In Singapore, it considers a multi-layered regulatory framework shaped by administrative discretion, marriage and parenthood policy, and a communitarian social context.
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Legal mechanisms of stratification
Identifying how eligibility rules, funding criteria, welfare assessments, and parental suitability standards structure who can access assisted reproduction and on what terms.
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Autonomy, justice & structural constraint
Testing whether reproductive autonomy can challenge stratification, while recognising how choice-based frameworks may obscure classed, gendered, heteronormative, and ableist barriers.
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AI, embryo selection & objectivity
Using AI in embryo selection as a case study in how emerging technologies can amplify existing bias while appearing to operate as neutral scientific decision-making.
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Justice-by-design regulation
Developing reform proposals that move reproductive governance away from policing access and toward actively dismantling, rather than automating, systemic inequality.
Talks & writing
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Experiential approaches to teaching law in diverse classrooms.
Bath Spa University Learning and Teaching Symposium, 2025.
This presentation explored how practical legal exercises, including client interviews, case analysis, document drafting, and reflective learning, can help students from under-served backgrounds bridge the gap between black-letter law and legal practice. Drawing on my SQE experience and teaching at William College, it considered inclusive strategies for building student confidence, engagement, retention, and readiness for the legal profession.
Peer-reviewed publications will be added here as they become available. For now, this section records selected talks, teaching scholarship, and works in progress.
Contact
For correspondence regarding research, collaboration, talks, or teaching, please contact me on LinkedIn.