Professor Jen Hendry

Professor Jen Hendry

Profile

I am Professor of Law and Social Justice in the School of Law, specialising in law and social theory, socio-legal studies, and comparative legal studies. Formerly I was the Director of the School’s Centre for Law and Social Justice (2017-2021), and in autumn 2023 will take up the post of Head of the Graduate School for the Faculty of Social Sciences.

I am currently an Affiliate Reearcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory (mpilhlt, Frankfurt), on the collaborative Research Network Socio-Legal Trajectories in Germany and the UK: Cultures, Actors, and Institutions. I am also an Academic Associate of 23ES Chambers – see my October 2021 keynote lecture at the launch event for the 23ES Academic Panel – and a member of the JUSTICE Working Party on (the function and operation of) Hybrid Orders. I sit on the peer review colleges of both the AHRC and the ESRC, and frequently serve as an international peer reviewer. Since 2020 I have been Editor-in-Chief of the German Law Journal (Cambridge University Press; open access; FirstView).

I have been a visiting research scholar at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Faculty of Law & Justice’s Centre for Crime, Law, & Justice (2022), the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law's Centre for Comparative & Public Law (2019), the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law (2015), the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy (2013), and the University of Sydney’s Department of Philosophy (2011). 

I have been at the School of Law here in Leeds since 2009. I completed my PhD in Law at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence (2009), before which I studied at the University of Glasgow (LLB Hons, 2002) and the University of Edinburgh (LLM, 2003). Prior to joining the School of Law in September 2009 I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Tilburg Institute for Comparative & Transnational Law at Tilburg University. 

Research interests

My research interests are in the fields of social and legal theory, socio-legal studies, and comparative legal studies. I am currently writing on theoretical and comparative perspectives on civil/criminal procedural hybrids, specifically civil recovery and knife crime prevention orders, and on questions of legal pluralism and legal culture. I also write on Indigenous justice, preventive justice, and systems theory and autopoiesis.

My Oxford University Press monograph, co-authored with Professor Colin King (IALS) and entitled Civil Recovery of Criminal Propertyis in press and due for publication in July 2023.

From October 2019 until December 2022 I was an AHRC Leadership Fellow undertaking research on the project ‘Everyday Challenges to the Rule of Law: The Case of Civil/Criminal Procedural Hybrids’.

From 2013-2019 I served on the Executive Committee of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA), the final two years as Vice-Chair.

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • PhD, European University Institute
  • MRes, European University Institute
  • LLM, University of Edinburgh
  • LLB (Hons), University of Glasgow

Professional memberships

  • JUSTICE, Working Party on Hybrid Orders
  • German Law Journal, Editor-in-Chief
  • 23ES Chambers, Academic Panel
  • Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
  • Socio-Legal Studies Association

Student education

I am the module coordinator of the LLM module Theories of Law and Social Justice and the level 2 undergraduate core module Law & Society. I also lecture on the level 1 undergraduate core module Foundations of Law

I supervise doctoral research in the fields of legal and social theory, socio-legal studies, and comparative legal studies. I am particularly interested in supervising work taking theoretical perspectives on civil/criminal hybrid procedures, for example two-step prohibitions like the Knife Crime Prevention Order (KCPO). I am similarly interested in supervising research on issues of Indigenous justice, legal pluralism, and legal culture. 

I currently supervise five postgraduate researchers (PGRs) and have successfully supervised six doctoral researchers to completion:

Research groups and institutes

  • Centre for Law and Social Justice

Current postgraduate researchers

<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>The school welcomes enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>