Associate Professor Ruth Sutton

Ruth’s current role involves leading the School of Law Departmental team strategically and operationally.

I qualified and practised as a Barrister on the Northern Circuit out of Manchester, England and a Solicitor in Sydney, NSW, AUS from 1995-2003, specialising in family and criminal law. My most famous case is Re LVMH (2000), a leading Court of Appeal decision dealing with whether children who witness domestic abuse should spend time with the perpetrator of that behaviour.

I have been in education for over 30 years starting out as a youth leader and in student guidance in FE colleges in Birmingham and the West Midlands.

I have extensive experience of leading at all levels including undergraduate, post-graduate taught and professional legal education.

In HE in Legal Education since 2000, I have extensive experience in leading on training for the Bar and acting as an external advisor to the Bar Standards Board on the Bar Transfer Test and the validation of the Bar Training Course. I have sat on a number of national regulatory committees relating to legal education and currently, on the Executive of the Committee for Heads of UK Law Schools (CHULS).

At a previous institution, for 8 years, I was the Director of their most successful trans-national education partnership with a law school in Hong Kong.

I have extensive experience of being an External Examiner and a Chief External Examiner.