Gerd Verschelden
Professor Gerd Verschelden is senior full professor of Family Law. He studied law at Ghent University and obtained his master’s degree in law and a secondary school teaching qualification in 1998. He completed his PhD in 2005 with a thesis on affiliation law and became both a postdoctoral assistant and lecturer in the same year.
Today, he is the lecturer-in-charge for the courses Basic Concepts of Law (Ba1) and both the introductory and advanced course Law of Persons, Family and Family Property (Ba3, respectively master's level). Under his impetus, Alternative Dispute Resolution became a compulsory course in the master’s program in law at Ghent University. He has been teaching in the Permanent Training Mediation program (Ghent University-University of Antwerp) for more than twenty-five years.
He was/is supervisor of three strategic basic research projects, one Basileus Mundus scholarship holder, three BOF scholarship holders, and several full-time academic assistants, which led to PhDs on divorce law (3), medically assisted reproduction (2), alternative dispute resolution (2), and child-friendly justice (1). He supervises ongoing doctoral research on affiliation, siblings, and family maintenance. His two-volume Handbook of Belgian Law on Persons, Family, and Family Property is considered a work of reference.
Gerd was a visiting professor at VU Amsterdam (2011) and Stellenbosch University (2016), each time as holder of a TPR Exchange Chair.
Today, he is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Family Law (Tijdschrift voor Familierecht, in Dutch), co-editor-in-chief of the anthology “Law of Persons and Family Law: Article-by-article commentary” with overview of case law and legal doctrine (Personen- en familierecht. Artikelsgewijze commentaar met overzicht van rechtspraak en rechtsleer, in Dutch) and coordinating lead author of the five-yearly “Overview of Case Law. Family Law” (“Overzicht van rechtspraak. Familierecht”) in the Journal of Private Law (Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht, in Dutch). Politicians also regularly call on his expertise, including in the ministerial working group on the reform of affiliation law.
Keywords:
Law of Persons, Family Law, Family Property Law, Affiliation