Catherine's research interests lie primarily within the field of the private law of obligations. In particular all aspects of contract law including the nature and theory of contractual obligations, remedies, consumer and commercial contracts, and the relationship between contract, tort and restitution. She is also interested in legal theory, particularly legal reasoning, interpretation in law, and law and literature.
The research for her most recent monograph, Vanishing Contract Law (Cambridge University Press 2022), was supported by a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust. Previous works include Contract Law And Contract Practice: Bridging The Gap Between Legal Reasoning And Commercial Expectation (Hart 2013), the first edition of Interpretation of Contracts (Routledge Cavendish 2007) and a second edition of the same work published by Routledge in 2018. In addition to books, she has published articles and short papers on a variety of contract issues: exclusion clauses, third party rights, restitutionary damages, entire agreement clauses, networks and contract law, and the law relating to behavioural obligations in contracts.
Her current projects include an examination of the effect of the covid crisis on contract law, and an investigation into the contract law aspects of the automation of contracting processes.