Professor Julian Webb

Overview

Julian Webb joined Melbourne Law School in 2014 and teaches in the areas of legal ethics, civil procedure, and regulatory theory. He previously held chairs at the Universities of Warwick and Westminster in the UK. He has been an honorary or visiting professor at the Universities of Leeds and Exeter, University College, London, the Southampton Institute, and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in the USA, and a visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.

Julian's research focuses particularly on technological and regulatory disruption in courts and legal services (where he collaborates with the Centre for AI & Digital Ethics’ ‘AI, Law, and Legal Institutions’ research stream), lawyer wellbeing, and on ethical theory and practice in the legal profession. In 2016 he was identified in a study by the International Bar Association as one of the world's fifteen most cross-cited scholars on innovation and disruption in legal services, while his paper 'Legal Technology: The Great Disruption' (in Abel et al, eds, Lawyers in 21st Century Societies) was shortlisted in the Australian Legal Research Awards 2023. Julian is also recognised as an international expert on legal education policy and development. A former Director of the HEA’s UK Centre for Legal Education, he subsequently led the research phase of the Legal Education and Training Review for England & Wales (2011-13) and was a consultant to the Hong Kong government’s Comprehensive Review of Legal Education and Training in 2016-18.  

Julian was a founding editor of the international journal Legal Ethics and is currently on the advisory boards for the International Journal of the Legal Profession, Revista Educacion y Derecho, and Legal Ethics. He also edits, with Professor John Paterson (University of Aberdeen), the 'Law, Science and Society' book series published by Routledge. His published works include Professional Legal Ethics: Critical Interrogations (Oxford UP, 2000, with Donald Nicholson), Lawyering Skills and the Legal Process (Cambridge UP, 2005, with Caroline Maughan) and the edited collection, Leading Works in Legal Ethics (Routledge, 2023).

Other Faculty and University Responsibilities

• Director of Staff Development (Law Academic Associates)
• Graduate Research Coordinator

Memberships and Affiliations

• Master of the Bench (Academic), Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, London
• Member, Academic Course Accreditation Committee, Victorian Legal Admission Board (2021-24;; 2024-27)
• Chair, NHMRC Human Research Ethics Committee, Grampians Health & St John of God Hospital, Ballarat.

Membership of Professional Associations

• International Association of Legal Ethics
• Australasian Society of Computers and Law
• Socio-Legal Studies Association (UK)