Special fields
- Family law
- Inheritance law
- Personal law including autonomy, non-discrimination and supported decision-making.
- Legal method
Background
Cand. Jur 1995. PhD 2019.
Katrine Kjærheim Fredwall is professor at the Department of Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo.
Fredwall received her PhD in 2019 on the dissertation "Familieformuerettens korreksjonsmekanismer" (eng. The correction mechanisms of family property law), published at Gyldendal in 2020. Fredwall has been responsible teacher in inheritance law and now the same in family law. She is co-editor of Tidsskrift for familierett, arverett og barnevernrettslige spørsmål (the Norwegian Family Law journal).
Fredwall has for nearly 20 years been a lawmaker in the Ministry of Justice. She has been in charge of a considerable number of law making-projects such as the project on the right to inheritance for cohabitants, a modern Act on guardianship law, the rules on power of attorney and a combined Act on inheritance and division of the estate. Fredwall started her career with 5 years at the Oslo-based law firm Thommessen, where she in particular specialized in competition law and intellectual property law.
Law-making is still an important field of interest. Fredwall was from 2023 to 2025 appointed as the head of a law committee instructed by the Government to develop rules on cohabitation/de facto relationships. The committee investigated the need for legislation regarding the financial relationship between cohabitants during their relationship and upon the termination of that relationship. In 2025, the committee submitted the report NOU 2025: 6 Cohabitation Law (Norwegian: Samboerloven). The regulation of the financial relationship between cohabitants was handed over to the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Astri Aas-Hansen. The report contains proposals for a dedicated cohabitation law. Fredwall has previously been a member of the legislative committee that led to NOU 2003: 21, as well as a member of the reference group for a new adoption law.
She is also Co-Director of the research collaboration NorFam (The Nordic Centre for Comparative and International Family Law). The overall aim of NorFam is to become the Nordic hub for collaborative research between scholars from Nordic countries in the fields of family and succession law. Another of NorFam’s aims is to produce and support the next generation of scholars in the fields of family and succession law.
In addition, Fredwall is member of Coordinating Group of Family Law in Europe (FL-EUR). FL-EUR is an Academic network established in 2019. FL-EUR currently unites 36 prominent experts, both academics and public officers from 31 European jurisdictions. In addition to be part of the leading group of the Network, Fredwall is a country reporter on FL-EUR's first working field “Empowerment and Protection of Vulnerable Adults” which report is expected in the end of 2023.
She is a member of the Advisory board for Social Security and Digital Identities (SODI project). She has extensive experience from teaching students and lawyers, and lawyers in private and public sector.