My main research interests are in the developing field of legal design - applying design thinking to legal problems and processes. Some of my recent writing on the subject includes Legal Design: Integrating Business, Design, & Legal Thinking with Technology (Edward Elgar 2021), and Transforming Higher Education Through Human-Centred Design (Routledge 2024). I have also written on the application of design ideas to the rule of law, to legal professional cultures and to legal education. I am the founding editor-in-chief of the Legal Design Journal.
Prof Michael Doherty was appointed as Professor of Law at Lancaster in 2019. In 2024, he became the first Professor of Legal Design in the world. He is Associate Head of the Law School and the lead for student experience. He is a former Chair of the Association of Law Teachers, and his scholarship covers both substantive law and scholarship of teaching and learning.
Michael has a longstanding interest in Public Law, has taught the subject for over 30 years and is author of the textbook, Public Law. This is now in its third edition and is co-authored with Dr Noel McGuirk (Routledge, 2022). He has taught, researched and published on human rights and on environmental law.
His current research and pedagogy focus is in the developing field of legal design - applying design thinking to legal problems and processes. He has co-edited a leading collection on legal design and technology (published by Edward Elgar, 2021), and another collection on 'Transforming Higher Education with Human-Centred Design'.
His research explores many facets of legal design such as the cultural barriers to bringing design thinking into law, the implications of information design practices for the rule of law, and has applied design thinking to legal education and curriculum development.
