to benefit New Zealand
2009 Distinguished Visiting Fellowship
Professor Dame Hazel Genn
University College of London
www.ucl.ac.uk
Dame Hazel is visiting New Zealand in September and October 2009 as the New Zealand Law Foundation's 2009 Distinguished Visiting Fellow. Her visit is being hosted by the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago. While in New Zealand Dame Hazel will give public lectures on:
1. Judicial appointment, diversity and decision-making focusing on issues of contemporary interest relating to the intersection between judicial decision-making, judicial appointments and growing interest in the diversity of judiciaries around the world; and
2. Civil justice reform and the role of ADR, discussing the reforms of civil justice systems in the context of escalating expenditure on criminal justice and vanishing civil trials. The lecture will also raise questions about the place of mediation in civil justice reform programmes and whether diverting cases out of the public courts and into private dispute resolution promotes access to justice.
Dame Hazel Genn is Dean of Laws, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies and co-director of the Centre for Empirical Legal Studies in the Faculty of Laws at University College London, where she is also an Honorary Fellow. She previously held a Chair and was Head of the Department of Law at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Before joining London University, she held full-time research posts at Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (1974-1985) and the Cambridge Institute of Criminology (1972-74). In January 2006, she was appointed an Inaugural Commissioner of the new Judicial Appointments Commission established under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and has been a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life since 2003. She has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2000, a member of its Council 2001-2004 and was appointed Vice-President of the Academy 2002-2004. In 2005, she was awarded the US Law and Society International Prize for distinguished scholarship and she holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Edinburgh, Leicester and Kingston. She has worked with the Judicial Studies Board for 12 years, serving as a member of the Main Board and the Tribunals Committee, and remaining involved in the design and delivery of training for the judiciary at all levels. She served for eight years as Deputy Chair and then Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council's Research Grants Board. In 2008 she was elected Honorary Master of the Bench of Gray's Inn. She is a leading authority on civil justice and has published widely in the field
Hazel Genn's work has focused on the experiences of ordinary people caught up in legal problems and the responsiveness of the justice system to the needs of citizens. Her work has had a major influence on policy-makers around the world and she is regularly invited to lecture and provide advice abroad. Consistent with her interest in public use of and experiences of the justice system, she recently led a Task Force on Public Legal Education (PLEAS). In recognition of her work on civil justice, she was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2000 and appointed DBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2006. In 2006 she was also appointed Queen's Counsel Honoris Causa.