Professor Lisa Webley

• PhD (Lond) 
• MA (Higher Education) (Westmin)
• MA (Legal Practice) (Westmin)
• PgDiplLP (CoL Chester)
• LLB Hons (Law with French) (Birm)
• DiplEJF (Limoges) 

• Cert Soc (Birkbeck)

Lisa Webley SFHEA FRSA GCILEx  joined Birmingham Law School at the beginning of 2018 and is the research lead in the Centre on Professional and Legal Education Research (CEPLER).She has carried out funded empirical research for a number of public bodies and organisations including: the European Commission; the Ministry of Justice (formerly the Department for Constitutional Affairs); the Department for Trade and Industry; the Law Society of England and Wales; the Legal Services Commission; the Legal Services Board; and the Victoria Law Foundation Australia.  She also undertakes academic and professional consultancy work, including consultancy for City law firms and for legal regulators.  

She held a full-time research position at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (1995-2000), followed by Senior (2000-2003) and Principal Lectureships (2003-2007), and a Readership (2007-2011) at the University of Westminster; she was the Chair in Empirical Legal Studies from 2011-2017.  She was also the Director of Learning and Teaching in the Law School (2003-2007), and then Faculty Research Director for Social Sciences and Humanities across the faculty (2013-2017). She was also Director of the Centre on the Legal Profession. 

Lisa has also taught previously at Birkbeck College and the University of Exeter. She has held a number of visiting positions: Visiting Fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney Australia (2002) and the Victoria Law Foundation, Melbourne Australia (2004); Adjunct Professor on the Dickinson Penn State School of Law semester abroad programme (2004 & 2005); Visiting Professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University, Ohio USA (2007); Visiting Professor on the University of Stetson JD programme (2008-2016). She was formerly a director and trustee of the Hackney Law Centre and a member of the Academic Committee of the Civil Mediation Council.

Professor Webley teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate courses offered by Birmingham Law School, currently public law and lawyer regulation. She has previously taught comparative constitutional law, family law, legal skills, the English legal system and research methods, with occasional classes on dispute resolution in a civil and family law context. She is Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies’ two-week intensive Introduction to Legal and Empirical Research Methods course for MPhil/PhD students and involved in the National Law PhD Training Programme. She provides empirical research methods training at a number of leading universities world-wide.

• Public Law
• Lawyer Regulation

Professor Webley supervises students undertaking empirical socio-legal research. She is keen to hear from candidates who wish to undertake research on:

Lawyer regulation, education, professionalism and legal ethics
Legal service delivery and the impact of technology
Access to justice and family justice
Public law and practice.

Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

• Member of the Law Society of England and Wales’ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee
• Member of the Ministry of Justice’s Research Advisory Group on Developing Financial Guidelines for Divorcing Couples
• Member of the Interlaw Diversity Forum and the Apollo Diversity Awards Judging Panel
• Member of the University of Westminster Press Board
• On the Editorial Advisory Boards of: The International Journal of the Legal Profession; The Law Teacher; Mediation Theory and Practice.