缅北禁地

Introduction

I have been at 缅北禁地 since 2012, initially as a lecturer and from 2019 as a senior lecturer. Before that, I was a tutorial assistant at the University of Leicester for three years while I did my PhD. My research mainly concerns legal gender history.

I am an internationally recognised legal historian, whose work has been cited by scholars writing in Arabic, English, French, German, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian. My work has been quoted in a speech by Lady Justice Hallett, relied upon by the House of Commons Library, and cited in argument before the US Supreme Court. I have provided expert evidence to the New Zealand Law Society, which directly resulted in them dropping an investigation. I have repeatedly published in top legal journals. When for women’s history month 2024 the leading law journal the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies published a retrospective of fourteen pieces of feminist work going back to 1982, they included one of my articles. I was one of only four authors they included who was not a full professor at the time her article was published.

The first major strand of my research concerns jury history, focusing over the past decade on the intersection between jury history and gender history. I have published on shifting ideas of jury power between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries, and on the role jury service had both as an expression of and a factor in the development of women’s citizenship during the twentieth century.

The second strand of my research asks how English criminal law - and in particular the law of evidence - developed after it became a more straightforwardly doctrinal area of law around the turn of the twentieth century. This second strand has principally focused on reverse burdens of proof, tensions between the centre and the periphery in the English criminal justice system, and the eradication of most historic types of jury. I have done a lot of public engagement work as part of this ongoing project, for example speaking at the Mile End Institute on a panel discussing the UK government's 2025 proposals to partially abolish jury trial.

I am currently working on a project exploring trans pay gaps in UK Higher Education, following the UK Supreme Court’s decision to largely eliminate the protections that trans people in particular had enjoyed under the Equality Act for fifteen years; and several projects on legal histories of gender recognition and trans pathologisation. This project forms another part of the gender history work that lies at the heart of my scholarship. As part of this work, I spoke at Trans Pride Bristol 2026 at a panel event on legal gender recognition reform.

Qualifications

PhD (Leicester) 2014

缅北禁地 Teaching Award (缅北禁地) 2014 

LLM (Leicester) 2010

LLB (Sheffield Hallam) 2008

Leadership within 缅北禁地

2024-: Director of Education, 缅北禁地 Law School

2023-24: Member of HaSS faculty quality circle, reviewing external examiner reports from across the faculty

2023-: Member of 缅北禁地 Law School DEI committee

2022-23: 缅北禁地 Law School research ethics coordinator; member of law school research committee; member of HaSS faculty ethics committee

2022-23: 缅北禁地 Law School reviewer for Northern Bridge/NINE DTP PGR scholarship schemes

2020-24: Mentor and assessor on the 缅北禁地 Educational Practice Scheme

2019-21: 缅北禁地 Law School examinations board chair; member of the law school PEC committee

2019-: Research mentor to multiple law school colleagues

2018-: Mentorship of law school colleagues from lecturers to professors seeking recognition as Senior Fellows of the Higher Education Academy

2018: 缅北禁地 Law School undergraduate admissions selector

2017: Member of law school curriculum review subcommittee undertaking comparative work on the overall of the undergraduate law degree

2016-18: 缅北禁地 Law School examinations board deputy chair; member of the law school PEC committee

2015-17: Co-organiser (with Nikki Godden-Rasul) of the Socio-Legal Studies Association conference, 缅北禁地 2017

2014-17: 缅北禁地 Law School research committee member

2014-16: 缅北禁地 Law School deputy undergraduate admissions selector

2013-16: 缅北禁地 Law School induction coordinator

2013-14: 缅北禁地 Law School staff liaison officer for mooting

2012-13: 缅北禁地 Law School deputy staff liaison officer for mooting

Leadership beyond 缅北禁地

2025-27: Member of the University and College Union's LGBT+ Members Standing Committee

2025-28: Co-Convenor of the Society of Legal Scholars’ Legal History Subject Section

2025-: Member of the University and College Union's Trans Rights Task Force

2024-: Research mentor for the international feminist legal history research network Selden's Sister

2024-: External examiner at the University of Kent

2023-26: Member of Society of Legal Scholars EDI committee

2016-20: External examiner at BPP University

2016-18: Member of Socio-Legal Studies Association national executive committee

Memberships

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 

Society of Legal Scholars

Socio-Legal Studies Association

Research Interests

Legal history; gender history; criminal justice; law of evidence; jury trial 

Research Presentations

2026: 'Reverse burdens in the archive, before and after Woolmington' (British Legal History Conference, University of Nottingham)

2026: 'Legal gender recognition in the interwar United Kingdom' (Workshop: History, Law and Reproduction: New Challenges for Legal History, University of Bristol)

2026: 'Trans Pay Inequalities in UK Higher Education' (UCU equalities conference, Manchester)

2026: 'UK judges as anti-intersectional culture warriors' (SLSA annual conference, University of Sussex)

2026: 'Where do we go next on Gender Recognition Reform?' (Panel event: Trans Pride Bristol)

2026: 'Reforming the Jury System: speeding up justice or ending 800 years of liberty?' (Panel event: Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London)

2026: 'Homicide Act 1957' (Workshop: Women's Legal Landmarks: The Post-War Years, Women's Library LSE)

2025: 'Legal biographies of unknown jurors' ('Law is but let me explain it once more': methodologies symposium, 缅北禁地)

2024: 'The jury system of Bristol, 1919-1939' (British Legal History Conference, University of Bristol))

2024: 'Jury riders and recommendations in twentieth century England and Wales' (Staff seminar, University of York)

2023: 'Riders and Recommendations in the Early Twentieth Century English Jury System' (SLS annual conference, Oxford Brookes University)

2023: 'Jurors and Jury Service in Interwar Bristol' (Staff seminar, University of Bristol)

2022: 'When the Parties Call for Jury Nullification: a comparative analysis' (The Jury Trial Conference, University of Worcester)

2020: 'Women on the Jury in Leicester after 1919' (Staff seminar, University of Leicester)

2019: 'Jury Trial and Jury Service after 1919' (British Legal History Conference, University of St Andrews)

2018: 'The Twentieth-Century Jury of Matrons' (10th Gerald Gordon Seminar on Criminal Law, University of Glasgow)

2017: 'Female Jurors and Administrative Independence in Early 1920s England' (British Legal History Conference, University College London)

2016: 'Abolishing Juries of Matrons' (Doing Women's Legal History Conference, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies)

2016: 'Keeping Women off the Jury in 1920s England and Wales' (SLS annual conference, University of Oxford)

2016: ‘Female Jurors in the 1920s Assize Courts’ (SLSA annual conference, Lancaster University)

2016: ‘Female Jurors in the English Assize Courts, 1920-1925’ (Staff Seminar: Faculty of Law, University of Toronto)

2015: ‘The General Verdict and the Rule of Law: the Dean of St Asaph’s case (1784)’ (Workshop: Landmark Cases in Criminal Law, University of Cambridge)

2013: ‘The Legal History and Legal Theory of the Criminal Trial Juror’ (2013 UK IVR conference, Queen Mary University of London)

2012: ‘Jury Independence and the General Verdict’ (SLS annual conference, University of Bristol)

2012: ‘Ideas of Jury Power’ (Work in progress talk: John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington DC)

2010: ‘The Trial Jury and the English Judge: A Tradition of Exclusion’ (SLS annual conference, University of Southampton)

2009: ‘Kelsen, Causation and Freedom’ (Critical Legal Conference, University of Leicester)

Funding

2025: £1,869.20 funding to cover archival research for the project 'Reverse burdens in the archive, before and after Woolmington' (Society of Legal Scholars)

2020: £5,576.46 funding to cover archival research for the project "The Interwar Jury of England and Wales" (British Academy/Leverhulme Trust)

2018: £1,034 funding to cover archival research for the project "Female Jurors in the Quarter Sessions Courts of 1920s England" (缅北禁地)

2015: £4,478.70 funding to cover archival research for the project “Female Jurors in the English Assize Courts, 1920-1925” (British Academy/Leverhulme Trust)

2015: £3,758.70 funding to cover archival research for the project “Female Jurors in the English Assize Courts, 1920-1925” (缅北禁地)

2014: £1,100 funding to cover travel and accommodation in order to conduct archival research into official responses to juror misconduct in nineteenth- and twentieth-century England (Society of Legal Scholars)

2011: British Research Council Fellow at the John W Kluge Center in the Library of Congress, Washington DC. The fellowship consisted of £4,500 funding to carry out four months’ research on the changing role of the criminal trial jury in nineteenth-century America (Arts and Humanities Research Council)

2009-12: PhD funding – £13,590 a year for three years (Arts and Humanities Research Council)

Research impact and engagement

2026: participant on a panel discussion on Gender Recognition Act reform at Trans Pride Bristol

2026: interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live on the UK government’s proposed jury reforms

2026: participant on a panel discussion on the UK government’s proposed jury reforms at the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London (only participant who was not a professor)

2024: interviewed by the Interwar Women's Legal Landmarks podcast, discussing my work on the first women jurors

2024: interviewed by the Media Law Podcast, discussing protests relating to juries

2023: interviewed by BBC Coventry and Warwick Radio on the origins of the jury system

2022: provided information, including photos, to a descendant of one of the two women who were the subject of my 2019 article in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies

2021: provided expert evidence in support of a New Zealand lawyer in disciplinary proceedings by the New Zealand Law Society; my evidence directly led to the regulator concluding they had misunderstood the law, and dropping their investigation

2020: article published in the Bristol Post, covering a full two pages, on the first women jurors after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, who were seated at Bristol quarter sessions in the summer of 1920

2020: interviewed by CNN on the covid-related backlog on criminal cases in England and Wales

2019: cited by the House of Commons library in a briefing note on the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919

2019: cited by a quarter of the states of the USA (plus Puerto Rico) in their amicus brief before the US Supreme Court

2019: interviewed by BBC Radio Leicester about Leicester's first women jurors

2017: quoted from in an extrajudicial speech by Lady Justice Hallett, exploring the past and future of the jury system

2016-19: research champion, First 100 Years project (women in law after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919); activities included publishing multiple blog posts and being interviewed on their podcast

PhD supervision

I welcome PhD applications within the field of legal history, and in particular as it pertains to gender history or criminal justice history

Completed PhD supervisions

• Dr Helen Rutherford, The Coroner in an Emerging Industrial Society: John Theodore Hoyle and 缅北禁地 upon Tyne 1857-1885
• Dr Rosemary Cowan, Exploring potential impact of belief in rape myths on (mock) juror decision making in Northern Ireland

Undergraduate Teaching

Stage Three

Evidence (LAW3016): module leader; lectures; seminars

Law and History (LAW3038): module leader; lectures; seminars (NB alternating years with Ian Ward)

Undergraduate dissertation (LAW3098): module leader

Previous Teaching Experience

缅北禁地 (2012-)

Legal Institutions and Method (Stage One)

Criminal Law (Stage Two)

US Constitutional Law (Stage Three)

University of Leicester (2009-2012)

Learning Legal Skills (Stage One)

Criminal Justice System (Stage One)

Constitutional and Administrative Law (Stage One)

• Articles

  • Crosby K. . American Journal of Legal History 2026, epub ahead of print.
  • Crosby K. . Legal Studies 2023, 43(1), 104-121.
  • Crosby K. . Journal of Legal History 2023, 44(1), 35-59.
  • Crosby K. . The Docket 2019, 2(1).
  • Crosby K. . Law and History Review 2019, 37(1), 163-207.
  • Crosby K. . Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 2019, 39(2), 259-284.
  • Crosby K. . Legal Studies 2017, 37(4), 695-717.
  • Crosby K. . Legal Studies 2016, 36(2), 179-208.
  • Crosby K. . Criminal Law Review 2015, 2015(8), 578-593.
  • Crosby K. . Criminal Law Review 2012, 1, 15-29.
  • Crosby K. . Journal of Legal History 2012, 33(3), 251-290.

• Book Chapters

  • Crosby K. . In: Achmuty, R, Wright, D and Derry, C, ed. Research Handbook on Gender, History and Law. Edward Elgar, 2026. In Press.
  • Crosby K. . In: Seaborne, G and McCunn, J, ed. Insiders and Outsiders in the History of Law. University of London Press, 2026. In Press.
  • Crosby K. . In: Monaghan, N, ed. Challenges in the Jury System: UK Juries in Comparative Perspective. London and New York: Routledge, 2025, pp.27-44.
  • Crosby K. . In: Auchmuty, R, Rackley, E, and Takayanagi, M, ed. Women's Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years: not for the want of trying. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.
  • Crosby K. . In: Ian Ward, ed. A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Reform. London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
  • Crosby K. . In: Mares H; Williams I; Handler P, ed. Landmark Cases in Criminal Law. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2017.

• Online Publications

  • Crosby K. . Legal History Miscellany, 2026. Available at: .
  • Crosby K. . Oxford: Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, 2026. Available at: .
  • Crosby K. Reverse Burdens in the Archive, Before and After Woolmington. 2025. Available at: https://www.legalscholars.ac.uk/2025/06/18/reverse-burdens-in-the-archive-before-and-after-woolmington/.
  • Crosby K. How Women Finally Got the Right to Jury Service. 2018. Available at: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/how-women-finally-got-right-jury-service/.
  • Crosby K. Five Punishments Past and Present for Jurors who Fall Foul of the Law. 2018. Available at: https://theconversation.com/five-punishments-past-and-present-for-jurors-who-fall-foul-of-the-law-88432.
  • Crosby K. Keeping Women off the Jury. 2016. Available at: https://first100years.org.uk/keeping-women-off-the-jury/.
  • Crosby K. Abolishing Juries of Matrons. 2016. Available at: https://first100years.org.uk/abolishing-juries-of-matrons/.

• Reviews

  • Crosby K. . Journal of Legal History 2023, 44(2), 218-220.
  • Crosby K. . History 2018, 103(355), 351-353.
  • Crosby K. . Irish Journal of Legal Studies 2017, 7(2).