About
My research and impact focusses on Access to Justice and new methods of Participatory Law/Policy making. I set up the participatory action research project Liverpool Access to Advice Network (LATAN) in 2020 Liverpool Access to Advice Network to understand and change the way free legal advice is provided in Liverpool. Established now as a charity in its own right LATAN is the community of practice for Liverpool's advice sector. In 2025, along with Dr Jennifer Sigafoos and Dr Sophie Wickham, I published 'Access to Justice, Poverty and Health Inequalities. Everyday Law in an Unequal Society', which documents and analyses our research in relation to LATAN. This interest in free legal advice comes in part from working for 10 years for Citizens Advice prior to doing my PhD.
I was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool in 2015 following the completion of my doctoral thesis on instruments of citizen participation, particularly the European Citizens Initiative. I have published several articles on the European Citizen's Initiative and worked as special adviser to the European Economic and Social Committee. I published an edited collection titled ''Democratic Participation in a Citizen’s Europe: What Next for the EU?' in 2018. I designed and ran citizens assemblies in 4 member states as part of an EACEA project in 2017-18, and in Northern Ireland the following year. My most recent participatory policy making project was Theatre Informed Policy Making in 2025. This was an innovative project using creative research and deliberation methods to bring people with lived experience and policy makers together to change Liverpool's advice policy. The project is documented in this film: Time for Change - A New Legal Advice Policy
Social justice and impact are central to all my work. I am the convenor of the People's Justice Network of the AHRC funded Centre for People's Justice; leading collaboration between the community of academics working to develop a new social justice methodology. I was awarded a national impact award by the Socio-Legal Studies Association in 2023, and our LATAN project is a shortlisted impact case study for REF 2029.
Prizes or Honours
- Socio Legal Studies Annual Impact Award (Socio-Legal Studies Association, 2023)
- Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Award (2019)