Staff focus

Richard Mullender

I am a Professor of Law and Legal Theory. I research in the fields of Tort Law, Legal Theory, Public Law, and Law and Literature. The interface between law and politics is a connecting thread that runs through the research projects I have pursued throughout my career. My research has this focus since law makes it possible for us to establish (to take a term from the political philosopher John Rawls) a ‘basic structure’ in which to accommodate people’s interests defensibly. If we are to do this, we need to bring into focus interests that have a prominent place in people’s lives. Tort law provides a context in which to do this – as is made apparent by the close attention it focuses on physical and mental security and more particular interests (such as reputation and privacy). Tort is also a powerful spur to refection on processes of legal development that extend the range circumstances in which individuals secure legal protection. This explains why incremental development in this legal field has been an issue on which I have focused attention throughout my career.

If we are to understand tort and other areas of law, we need to set them in a wider context. This is why my interest in particular branches of law has always run in tandem with an interest in politics. Politics has to do with the accommodation of people’s interests in defensible ways. How we go about doing this often gives rise to conflict. In my writings, I have probed these conflicts in a range of ways: e.g., by reference to particular political philosophies (liberalism, conservatism, and socialism). I have also reflected on ways in which to bring law and politics into a fruitful relationship. This has led me, for example, to identify the contributions to political philosophy made by Isaiah Berlin and Michael Oakeshott as useful adjuncts to Herbert Hart’s highly influential account of law as a system. Berlin is a guide to the difficulties involved in accommodating a range of values in a legal system. Oakeshott provides guidance on the models of human association that a legal system can sustain.

At all points in my academic career, I have had the good fortune to be situated in stimulating environments. As a student in Exeter, and then in Oxford, I encountered people who had no hesitation in putting productive pressure on me by posing questions such as ‘What do you mean?’ and ‘How do you know?’ As my career has progressed, I have benefited from working in alliance with others: e.g., as a member of the Editorial Board of the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Professional Negligence, and while writing for Political Quarterly. These alliances have always been strong in Newcastle Law School. The School provides an environment that is, at once, serious and convivial. Here, I think for example, of conversations I regularly have with Ian Ward on law and literature and with Patrick O’Callaghan (now in University College Cork) on privacy. Conversations such as these have been going on in Newcastle Law School for a long time. This was recently impressed upon me by Professor Peter Goodrich (a towering figure in the field of law and literature who is now based at Cardozo Law School in New York city). Peter reminded me of Ian Stevenson - a colleague we had each (at different times) worked with in Newcastle Law School. ‘Stevie’, he remembered, would begin the day with questions such as this: ‘Morning, Peter. Read any Sam Johnson?’ This question is emblematic of the basic structure Newcastle Law School sustains. It is serious, convivial – and those who spend time in it have good reason to look back on it fondly.

Richard Mullender