This term we have the pleasure of welcoming to the Department Dr Richard Martin (@__RichardMartin), Assistant Professor of Law. In this Q&A interview, Richard talks to us about his research, his teaching, and his ideas for the year ahead.
Could you tell us about your education and career before joining the Department?
I left my native Northern Ireland to study Law at the University of Bristol, before moving on to the University of Oxford where I did my MSc and DPhil at the Faculty of Law’s Centre for Criminology. I was fortunate to take up an LSE Fellowship in Law Department 2017-19 and was a British Academy Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow for a year at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights back at Oxford Law Faculty.
What is your key area of research expertise and what drew you to the field?
My research expertise is criminal justice and extends out from there to human rights law and public law. My research focuses on what happens when law and policing meet in practice – the everyday realities of a police custody suit or the policing of public protests. To do so I draw on the law and legal scholarship but combine this with empirical methods and concepts and ideas from fields like criminology, socio-legal studies and anthropology. I’ve just finished a book on how police officers make sense of, interpret and apply human rights law standards and now I’m conducting research on the impact of the statutory reforms to pre-charge bail.
I came to criminal justice as a law student and I’ve studied, researched and taught criminal justice alongside criminal law and public law ever since. As far as I see it, there is much to be gained from a blend of doctrinal and empirical research – and in encouraging tomorrow’s lawyers, judges, policymakers to explore the criminal law and process amidst the messiness of everyday life.
What is a highlight of your career to date?
Back when I was an LSE Fellow, in the pre- ‘new normal’ years, I had a wonderful whistle stop research trip to Melbourne. Over the course of a week I presented my research to government lawyers at the Ministry of Justice, to senior police officers at Victoria Police HQ and to attendees of the Biennial Public Law Conference held at the University of Melbourne. I arrived back in London exhausted but gosh it was fun (and the galleries and museums were super!)
When you’re not working, what do you like to do in your free time?
Ah, the usual stuff! I enjoy relaxing with my partner, social-distanced socializing with friends, running and walking in Oxford’s parks, pouring over the FT Weekend and watching rugby. Sometimes, when the mood takes me, I dabble in watercolours.
How have you experienced online teaching and learning in the new educational environment? What lessons should universities take forward from this experience?
I had the pleasure of supervising the undergraduate dissertation of a really resourceful and resilient student during the height of the lockdown, as well as some postgraduate revision sessions. It’s really difficult. We’re social beings. When we’re in class in person, we can read and respond to the subtlety of one another’s expressions, tones and body language. We can move in and out of discussions and debates freely. Spontaneity – and humour – can come easily enough. Recreating some semblance of this online is the task at hand.
In the coming academic year, the focus will naturally be on delivering exceptional teaching and learning, but when you do have the time, what would your dream research project be?
After a long week, a good friend and former colleague of mine used to ruminate on an ever-more sophisticated proposal for an international comparative study of the social life of the wellness industry – mountain retreats, city spas, white beaches etc. I’d happily apply to be the field researcher on his project. It’s good to diversify, right?
Finally, what is the best piece of advice you can give to incoming law students?
The same advice a law professor gave me when on a gloomy afternoon in my first term of law school. Be patient, be kind and trust the process. The first year is the time for trial and error. Write that bad essay. Take the feedback on board. Then write a better one next time.
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