Dr Brett Crumley

Professional biography

Brett has worked as a central academic at the Open University since 2020. He researches charity law and teaches trusts law, equity, land, and contract. Previously he read for his PhD and worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Liverpool, teaching equity, trusts, and contract law. He completed his undergraduate and masters degrees in law at the Nottingham Law School.

Research interests

Brett is currently looking at the relationship between charities and law reform, animal rights, climate change, and political economy. This work grows out of his PhD thesis, which analysed the Charity Tribunal for England and Wales and its decisions.

Brett has written with a co-author, Dr John Picton (University of Manchester), on the ability of charitable service-users to challenge cy-près schemes. The piece, 'Still Standing?' argues that service-users should have standing to appeal in the Charity Tribunal for England and Wales as 'persons affected' by changes to the purposes of a charity. The Tribunal cited the article in Mermaids v Charity Commission for England and Wales and LGB Alliance [2023] UKFTT 563 (GRC) [58].

Teaching interests

Brett is Module Team Chair of W311 Trusts law and  Module Team Member of W302 Equity, trusts and land, W212 Contract law, W340 Law, society and culture.

When Brett joined the OU Law School, he was involved in producing new modules on tort law, access to justice, contracts, equity, and trusts. He is now on the Qualification Design Team for the Open University Law School's forthcoming LLM.

Brett is willing to supervise PhD projects looking at charity law, trusts law, or related areas of private law. He is currently supervising a PhD about online expression rights.

Publications

‘Christmas Carols in Chantry Chapels’ Open Justice Centre Blog (18 December 2024).

‘Written evidence submitted to the Charities Bill House of Lords Special Public Bill Committee 2021 [PDF]’, CHB0013 (15 September 2021).

‘“Still Standing?”: Charitable Service-Users and Cy-près in the First-tier Tribunal (Charity)’ (2018) 3 Conv 262, with Dr John Picton.

‘Book Review: Religion, Charity and Human Rights by Kerry O’Halloran (OUP 2014)’ (2017) 8(2) Voluntary Sector Review 231.

Impact and engagement

Brett has delivered papers at several conferences, such as the SLS, ARNOVA, and MSPL.

Selected talks

‘Chantries and Brass: Unexpected Archives of Legal Charity’, Legal History in Unexpected Places Conference, Open University, November 2024

‘For a Thematic Approach to Teaching Trusts Law’, Society of Legal Scholars 115th Annual Conference, University of Bristol, September 2024

‘The New Trusts Module at the Open University’, Society of Legal Scholars Property and Trusts Stream: Teaching Property and Trusts in the Contemporary University, University of Manchester, March 2024

‘Charity and Public Spaces’ Society of Legal Scholars 113th Annual Conference, King’s College London, September 2022

‘Justice for Charity: An Inquiry into Pluralism’, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, November 2017

‘How Do We Reform the Charity Tribunal?’, Charity Law and Policy Unit Public Seminar, University of Liverpool, May 2017

With John Picton, ‘Altering Organisational Purposes: Community Challenges to Charity Commission Decisions’, Voluntary Sector Studies Network Annual Conference, Nottingham Conference Centre, September 2016

‘Property in the Charity Tribunal’, Modern Studies in Property Law 2016 PGR Conference, Queen’s University, Belfast, April 2016

External collaborations

Brett has co-written and co-presented research with Dr John Picton, University of Manchester.