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Research Interests

Having gained an undergraduate law degree (LLB) at Hull University, he completed graduate work in law at Cambridge University as a William Senior Scholar in Comparative Law (LLM and Diploma in Comparative Legal Studies), and Harvard Law School (LLM), where he was awarded a doctorate (SJD).

His research engages with law, history, politics and society, traversing a wide range of subject areas including legal history, company law, international human rights (with reference to the struggle to prosecute Augusto Pinochet, and the ‘human rights turn’ in post-Pinochet Chile), the legal profession, legal education, European anti-discrimination law, women’s rights and gender equality, law and literature, visual images of legal institutions, legal life writing and socio-legal studies.  

His publication Law, economy and society, 1750-1914 : essays in the history of English law is now available as an Open Access publication via the LLMC Digital platform. 

Additional Information

He has authored, co-authored and edited 24 books (including special issues of journals), and has written over 100 articles and book chapters.  He contributed to the New Oxford Companion to Law, the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Economic History, the Oxford Reader's Companion to Charles Dickens, and the Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment.  He has also published articles in The Times (of London), The GuardianThe Santiago Times (Chile), Open Democracy and El Mostrador, and has contributed to TV (including ITN and CNN) and radio (e.g. BBC Radio 4 and World Service, and Vienna Public Radio) on legal history and international human rights.  His published work has been translated into Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish.  

The recipient of research grants and scholarships within and beyond the UK, he has undertaken commissioned research for governments, inter-governmental organisations and non-governmental organisations, most recently the European Court of Justice (2011 and 2013), the European Court of Human Rights (2011 and 2013) and the European Union Parliament Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee (2012 and 2013). He has held Visiting Professorships in Canada, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the USA, and has delivered over 300 invited lectures in more than 20 countries. 

He has been extensively involved in institution building through his leadership in creating and sustaining law schools in London and Lancaster and national and international working groups, associations, seminar and conference programmes and multi-authored, inter-disciplinary, and transnational scholarship.  His assistance has been acknowledged by over 100 authors in more than 130 publications.   He was awarded the Lancaster University Teaching Prize for innovative curriculum design and inspiring student learning.

Publications

Selected Books

David Sugarman and Avrom Sherr (eds.). Lawyers’ Empire, Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780–1950, W. Wesley Pue. A Special Issue of the International Journal of the Legal Profession vol. 24, No. 1, 2017 pp. 90. ISSN 0969-5958

Linda Mulcahy and David Sugarman (eds.). Legal Life Writing: Marginalised Subjects and Sources. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. pp. 172. Journal of Law and Society Special Issue Book Series. ISBN: 978-1-119-05216-6

Sylvia Walby, David Sugarman et al, Stopping Rape. Towards A Comprehensive Policy. Bristol: Policy Press, 2015. ISBN: 9781447322092

Selected Essays and Articles

“Robert W. Gordon in Conversation with David Sugarman”, (2018) vol. 1, October, The Docket (The Digital Edition of Law and History Review).

David Sugarman, “Promoting Dialogue Between History and Socio-legal Studies: The Contribution of Christopher W. Brooks and the ‘Legal Turn’ in Early Modern English History,” Journal of Law and Society (2017) volume 44, issue 5, Special Issue: Main Currents in Contemporary Sociology of Law, pp. 37- 60.

David Sugarman, “Editorial”. In: David Sugarman and Avrom Sherr (eds.). Lawyers’ Empire, Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780–1950, W. Wesley Pue. A Special Issue of the International Journal of the Legal Profession vol. 24, No. 1, (2017) pp. 1-2.

David Sugarman, “Foreword”. W. Wesley Pue, Lawyers’ Empire, Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780–1950 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016). pp. ix-xii.

Linda Mulcahy and David Sugarman, “Legal Life Writing: Marginalised Subjects and Sources.” In Legal Life Writing: Marginalised Subjects and Sources (March 2015) above, 1-6.

David Sugarman, “From Legal Biography to Legal Life-Writing: Broadening Conceptions of Legal History and Socio-Legal Scholarship.” In Legal Life Writing: Marginalised Subjects and Sources (March 2015) above, 7-33.

David Sugarman, “Theory and practice in law and history: a prologue to the study of the relationship between law and economy from a socio-historical perspective.” In Legal Theory and Legal History. Maksymilian Del Mar and Michael Lobban (eds.,). (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014) 443-479.

Presentations and Interviews

Interview:

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/research/explore/research-units/centre-of-law-and-society

On-line Conference Presentations Include:

“The ‘Pinochet Effect’– the Impact of Transnational Legal Action”.  Event Marking the 15th Anniversary of Augusto Pinochet’s Arrest in London.  The State Parliament of Berlin, 30 September 2013.   
https://vimeo.com/79777650

“Quotas as an Instrument of Non-Discrimination and Positive Action”. Conference, “Getting Women on Board.  Will the EU Do What It Takes?”.  The European Parliament, Brussels, 7 March 2013.  

On-line Interviews:

“Hart Interviewed: H.L.A. Hart in Conversation with David Sugarman”.

http://blog.oup.com/2012/12/h-l-a-hart-in-conversation-with-david-sugarman/

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3MAPgqN8JWiLdUqgmrQMzhao6b-RrS49