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Email

mjh213@cam.ac.uk

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Education CV

Education

2022 - Present: PhD Candidate, Churchill College, University of Cambridge (funded by an Open-Oxford Cambridge AHRC DTP – Churchill College Studentship)

2021 - 2022: LLM, Girton College, University of Cambridge (First Class)

  • Wright Rogers Law Scholarship
  • George Long Prize for Jurisprudence
  • Girton College Prize for First Class performance on LLM

2014 - 2015: Legal Practice Course (LPC), BPP University (Distinction)

2013 - 2014: Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL), BPP University (Distinction)

2010 - 2012: BPhil in Philosophy, St Anne's College, University of Oxford (Distinction)

  • Thesis title: 'Wittgenstein on the Nature of Philosophy'
  • Other papers: Philosophy of Mind and Action, Wittgenstein, Plato

2006 - 2009: BA in Philosophy, Girton College, University of Cambridge (First Class with Distinction: "Starred First")

  • Craig Taylor Prize (awarded by the Faculty of Philosophy) for best overall performance in Part II of the Philosophy Tripos
  • Emily Davies Scholarship and Christina Barnard Prize (awarded by Girton College) for First Class performance in Part II of the Philosophy Tripos
  • Sir Arthur Arnold Scholarship and Isabella Cranshaw Prize (awarded by Girton College) for First Class performance in Part IB of the Philosophy Tripos
  • Rosalind, Lady Carlisle Scholarship and Jane Catherine Gamble Prize (awarded by Girton College) for First Class performance in Part IA of the Philosophy Tripos

Selected employment history

Before commencing the LLM I practised as a solicitor of England & Wales for just under six years. I specialised in divorce, financial remedies on relationship breakdown, proceedings under the Children Act, and domestic abuse proceedings under the Family Law Act 1996.

Fields of research

Family law, moral and political philosophy, jurisprudence and legal theory

 

The Normative Foundations of Family Law

Summary

Through its distribution of legal rights and obligations, family law engages the State in the legal regulation of personal relationships. How, if at all, can this form of regulation be justified? In my research I attempt to answer this question by establishing the moral constraints on State regulation of personal relationships. I therefore seek to determine the circumstances in which it is morally permissible and morally obligatory for the State to engage in the regulation of personal relationships, the purposes for which the State may or must engage in such regulation, and the means by which the State may or must pursue those purposes. By doing so I hope to provide family law with cohernent normative foundations, upon which particular systems of legal regulation can then be constructed. 

Supervisors

Professor Matthew Kramer

Professor Anna Heenan

Representative Publications

Book Reviews

Review of Marsha Garrison's Family Life, Family Law, and Family Justice: Tying the Knot in the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 37(1), 2023.

Start Date

Oct 2022