Dr Laurene Soubise

Profile

I joined the School of Law in August 2022 as a Lecturer in Law.

Before joining the University of Leeds, I worked as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool and a Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Originally from Lyon, France, I hold a Bachelor in Law from the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and a Masters in Human Rights Law from Université Lumière Lyon 2.

In 2016, I was awarded my PhD by the School of Law at the University of Warwick (under a co-tutelle agreement with the Université Lumiere Lyon 2). My PhD was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Responsibilities

• Law School Ethics Lead

Research interests

My research interests lie in the field of legal decision-making in criminal justice, using qualitative, empirical, and comparative research methods.

Until now, my research has focused on developing aspects of my PhD thesis.

Entitled ‘Prosecutorial Discretion and Accountability. A comparative study of France and England and Wales’, the thesis draws on direct observations and interviews I conducted in the two jurisdictions under study. It explores how the French and Anglo-Welsh criminal justice systems attempt to combine the necessities of accountability for public prosecution services with the flexibility and reactivity needed in the application of the law, provided by prosecutorial discretion. My thesis is one of the few systematic, comparative, and empirical accounts of the decision-making process of national prosecution services.

I have also written about the sentencing process in France and have conducted research on No Appeal cases at the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

I am currently working on a collaborative project with colleagues at the University of Liverpool examining how the partial defence of ‘loss of control’ as enacted by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (s.54) is operating in practice. We have analysed all reported appeal cases involving the new defence and are developing an empirical project of first-instance decision-making in loss of control cases, including trial observations, interviews with practitioners, and access to CPS case files for further insight into how this defence is working in practice.

In parallel to the Loss of Control project, I am also working on a new research project on post-sentencing procedures (i.e., failure to comply with licence conditions, community order or suspended sentence conditions). The project is a socio-legal study of post-sentencing procedures (so-called ‘back-door’ sentencing). This comparative and empirical project aims to explore the role and function of courts, as well as the application of due process protections to these proceedings in practice.

Qualifications

• PhD in Law (Warwick)
• Masters in Human Rights Law (Lyon 2)
• Bachelors in Law (Lyon 3)

Professional memberships

• Socio-Legal Studies Association
• Society of Legal Scholars

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Criminal Justice Studies
• Legal Professions Research Group