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Hilary Sommerlad
Principal Lecturer in Law Leeds Metropolitan University |
Dr Sommerlad is Principal Lecturer in Law at Leeds Metropolitan University with a degree in History from Cambridge University and a D. Phil in International Politics from York University. Her research interests are in the areas of legal aid policies, access to justice, and women in the legal profession. She has run 5 research projects, given conference papers and published in these areas. Her publications on legal aid include: Legally aided clients and their solicitors: qualitative perspectives on quality and Legal Aid, The Law Society (with David Wall (1999)); The implementation of quality initiatives and New Public Management in the legal aid sector in England and Wales: bureaucratisation, stratification and surveillance, International Journal of the Legal Profession (1997); 'I've lost the plot: an everyday story of legal aid lawyers', Journal of Law and Society (1998); 'English perspectives on quality: the client led model - a third way?', University of British Columbia Law Review (2000); 'Exploring the limits to the standardization of the expert knowledge of lawyers: quality and legal aid in the United Kingdom', Syracuse Law Review (with Peter Sanderson) (forthcoming). She is currently working on the results of a qualitative study of the experiences of client and practitioners of legal aid contracting in the UK, and developing a project on audit in the legal aid sector.
She is also a solicitor, and worked for several years in general practice, specialising in criminal and family law.