Dr Kate Leader

Profile

Kate is a Senior Lecturer in Criminal Law at Queen Mary. Prior to this, Kate was a Senior Lecturer at the University of York, where she worked from 2017-2023. Kate has also been a sessional lecturer in both Criminal Justice and Theatre Studies at Birkbeck, University of London as well as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at LSE Law and University of Sydney.

Undergraduate Teaching

• LAW5005 Criminal Law (Co-Convenor)

Postgraduate Teaching

• SOLM203 Comparative Criminal Law

Research

My primary research interests revolve around law, humanities and performance with a specific interest in online courts and technology in criminal proceedings. I hold a double doctorate in law (LSE) and theatre and performance studies (USYD) and my work draws on methods from both disciplines. I did a PhD researching the role of performance in the adversarial criminal trial and I am currently researching the role of ‘liveness’ in legal proceedings, and the value it holds for legal professionals and participants in the face of the increased use of technology. In 2023 I presented on the Theatre of the Trial at the All Souls Seminar Series, University of Oxford and on Law and Performance for a podcast from the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford.

My other primary research interest is the role of laypersons in legal proceedings. I have done doctoral research into the experience of litigants in person in the civil justice system (my monograph on this subject is forthcoming from Hart in 2024) as well as research into self-represented defendants in the Magistrates Courts. My research in this area spans interest in legal professionalism, access to justice, pseudolaw and conspiracy theories
I am currently PI of a project funded by the Society of Legal Scholars Research Activities Fund on lawyers’ perceptions of lay magistrates and the Magistracy. This research entails a pilot study holding focus groups to explore perceptions of legitimacy of the Magistracy.

I am also co-I on an ESRC Policing and Vulnerabilty Centre project on Defendants as Victims. In collaboration with Dr Ailbhe O’Loughlin (University of York) we are preparing a report for the Law Commission on defendants who are also victims of crime. 

Funded research

• PI on Society of Legal Scholars’ pilot study into lawyer perceptions of Magistrates and the Magistracy.
• Co-Investigator on ESRC Policing and Vulnerability Centre project, Defendants as Victims.
• Funded doctorate (LSE Law School Award) on Litigants in Person (2013-2018)
• Funded doctorate (Australian Postgraduate Award) on performance and the adversarial criminal trial (USYD, 2004-2008).

Work in progress or conferences

• Conspiracy! Or When Bad Things Happen to Good Litigants in Person, preprint publication available at SSRN.
• The Theatre of the Trial, All Souls Seminar Series, Oxford.
• Law and Performance, Talking About Methods Podcast, Centre for Socio-legal Studies, University of Oxford.

Publications

• "Reconstructing Criminal Law", in Leading Works in Criminal Law (Routledge, 2023)
• "The Theatre of the Trial", All Souls Seminar series, University of Oxford, 2023.  / "Law and Performance" [podcast], Talking About Methods, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford
• "The Small Claims Paper Determination Pilot: Filtering Out the County Court's 'Garbage Claims'", Modern Law Review Forum Blog 2022
• "Law, Presence to Absence: The Case of the Disappearing Defendant,", Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance (OUP: 2021)
• "From Beargardens to the County Court: Inventing the Litigant in Person," Cambridge Law Journal 79.2 (2020)
• "The Trial's the Thing: Performance and Legitimacy in International Criminal Trials," Theoretical Criminology 24.2 (2020)

Public Engagement

Related news

• Magistrates "poorly trained" - should they go?
  22 March 2024