Dr Karen Lee is a Senior Lecturer who specialises in communications regulation. An important focus of her research is on the role of self-regulation and co-regulation in the communications sector, including within the emerging regulatory landscape for digital platforms and social media.

Karen has an established track record in evaluating the adequacy and effectiveness of regulatory frameworks. For example, with UTS colleague Professor Derek Wilding and funded by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Karen recently completed a project examining consumer and public engagement in industry rule-making and is currently undertaking research on options for a complaint-handling framework for digital platforms. This work builds on her book The Legitimacy and Responsiveness of Industry Rule-making, published by Hart in September 2018.

Karen regularly contributes to public policy debate on communications regulation. For example, Karen (with Sacha Molitorisz) was a member of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI)’s project team that drafted submissions on Australia’s world-first ‘News Media Bargaining Code’. She later served as PIJI’s Policy Manager where she was responsible for drafting PIJI’s submission on the Media Reform Green Paper. Her work has been published in the Federal Law Review, the Journal of Media Law (with Sacha Molitorisz), Media and Arts Law Review, Media International Australia (with Derek Wilding), and the Australian Journal of Competition and Consumer Law.

Prior to joining the Law Faculty at UTS, Karen completed her PhD in law at the University of New South Wales, where she received the Faculty of Law’s PhD Excellence Award. She is admitted to practice as a lawyer in New South Wales, England and Wales, and Illinois. She worked for Denton Wilde Sapte (now Dentons) (London) as a solicitor for seven years.