Richard Moorhead

Richard Moorhead is an empirical legal scholar who has worked on lawyers’ ethics and regulation, the courts and legal services, and access to justice. Interdisciplinary in approach, he has worked alongside economists, management scientists, and psychologists in such work, as well as with judges, Parliamentarians, policy-makers, and, professional regulators and representatives.

He blogs at lawyerwatch and on substack (on the Post Office Scandal) and regularly features in professional and national press. He is currently leading an ESRC funded project on the Post Office Scandal with Karen Nokes, Rebecca Helm, and Sally Day.

Past research includes projects on lawyers’ ethics (for instance his 2018 book is on the Ethics of In-house Lawyers, with Vaughan and Godhino); litigants in person; quality in legal aid; the effects of funding regimes on lawyer behavior; and, legal aid reform (community legal services, public defenders and contracting in particular).

His teaching has championed new approaches to looking at lawyers and the future of legal practice. He was on the Data Evidence and Science Board at the Ministry of Justice and was a previous member of the Civil Justice Council, as well as the Legal Services Consultative Panel. Has advised three Select Committees legal aid inquiries and advises the Women and Equalities Select Committee on NDAs. He currently sits on the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board.

He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2019 and a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts in May 2016. He sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of the Legal Profession, and the advisory boards of the Journal of Law and Society and Ethics and Behaviour.