Staff profile

William's areas of research expertise are private law and legal philosophy. He arrived at Durham Law School in summer 2012, having previously been a Professor at the Law School, University of Manchester. Before that he had held chairs at Cardiff University, Keele University and the University of Hull Law School (where he was almost the inaugural HK Bevan Professor of Law). He holds an undergraduate degree in law and postgraduate degrees in jurisprudence and in political philosophy. He teaches mainly private law subjects and legal philosophy and has supervised a number of doctoral students in these fields. These are also the principal fields in which he publishes, his first two monographs being Understanding and Explaining Adjudication (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1999) and Philosophy of Private Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press 2007), neither of which is as expensive as you might think. His latest book, Law's Judgement, was published in July 2017 by Hart Publishing and is in part based upon work funded by the Leverhulme Trust (MRF 2012-142). It is also surprisingly good value (for a taster, click here: https://media.bloomsburyprofessional.com/rep/files/9781509913282sample.pdf). He has held visiting posts at a number of Universities, including the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Brisbane, the College of Law, Australian National University, Canberra, and the Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal. In January 2014 William was the Rt. Hon. John Turner Fellow in Public Law at the Law School, University of Western Ontario. For Michaelmas term 2014-15, he was a Sir Neil MacCormick Visiting Fellow at Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh. He was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, from April until June 2017, where he pursued work on Access to Justice (for the first published installment of that project, click here:https://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/WYAJ/issue/view/465). 

• legal philosophy
• philosophy of private law
• the normative standing of access to justice
• adjudication and legal reasoning

• Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences
• Durham Centre for Law and Philosophy
• Durham Centre for Law and Philosophy
• Human Rights Centre

Chapter in book

• Lucy, W. (2014). The Rule of Law and Private Law. In Private Law and the Rule of Law. Austin, Lisa M. & Klimchuk, Dennis Oxford: Oxford University Press. 41-66.
• Lucy, William & Williams, Alexander (2013). 'Public and Private: Neither Deep Nor Meaningful?'. In Private Law: Key Encounters with Public Law. Barker, Kit & Jensen, Darryn (eds) Cambridge University Press. 45-88.
• Lucy, William (2013). Private and Public: Some Banalities About a Platitude. In After Public Law. Mac Amhlaigh, C., Michelon, C. & Walker, N. Oxford University Press. 56-82.
• Lucy, W. (2009). What's Private about Private Law? In Goals of Private Law. Robertson, A. & Tang, H.W. Oxford: Hart Publishing. 47-75.
• Lucy, W (2008). Judges, distinguished. In Oxford Companion to Law. Cane, P. & Conaghan, J. OUP. 649-651.

Journal Article

• Lucy, William (2022). The Death of Law, Another Obituary. Cambridge Law Review 81(1): 109-138.
• Lucy, William (2022). Law School 2061Ψ. The Modern Law Review 85(2): 539-553.
• Lucy, W (2020). Access to Justice and the Rule of Law. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 40(2): 377-402.
• Lucy, William (2019). Is opacity a value? Ordines: Per un sapere interdisciplinare sulle istituzione europee V(1): 1-26.
• Lucy, William (2019). Law's Judgement: a Summary. Problema: Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho 13: 3-8.
• Lucy, William (2019). Law's judgement some thoughts. Problema: Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho 13: 55-63.
• Lucy, William (2016). The Normative Standing of Access to Justice: An Argument from NonDomination. Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 33(2): 231-261.
• Lucy, W (2011). Equality Under and Before the Law. University of Toronto Law Journal 61(3): 411-465.
• Lucy, W (2009). Abstraction and Equality. Current Legal Problems 62(1): 22-70.
• Lucy, W (2009). Persons in Law. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 29(4): 787-804.
• Lucy, W. (2009). Abstraction and the Rule of Law. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 29(3): 481-509.
• Lucy, W. (2007). Method and Fit: Two Problems for Contemporary Philosophies of Tort Law. McGill Law Journal 52(4): 605-656.

Monograph

• Lucy, William (2017). Law's Judgement. Hart Publishing.