After visiting a few colleges, I felt Emma
was the one in which I felt most welcome
Dr Jenny Russell
MA (Cantab), LLM (Cantab), PhD (Cantab)
Research Fellow; Director of Studies in Law
Herchel Smith Fellow in Law
Biography
I joined Emmanuel in January 2022 as the Herchel Smith Fellow in Law. I currently teach two property law courses – land and equity – to Emmanuel’s second and third-year law students. I am working on developing my personal research which lies in the fields of land and housing law.
Teaching Interests
Land Law, Equity
Research
My primary area of interest is land law, becoming hooked on the subject as an undergraduate at Clare College, Cambridge, at that time appreciating its long history and intricate logic. My interest matured following graduation in 2015, when I spent a year as Research Assistant working on land registration reform at the Law Commission – England and Wales’ law reform body. That year in London really developed what has become my core research ethos which is to bring out the ordinary. How does and should the law engage with the ways in which real people use and share land and property?
Following an LLM, also taken at Clare in 2016-17, I jumped ship to Trinity Hall where I began doctoral research. My PhD thesis examined the spaces made for consideration of ideas of ‘vulnerability’ within the law governing repossession of owner-occupied properties by mortgage lenders. I submitted the thesis in 2021 and graduated in 2022.
My immediate goals are to publish parts of the PhD and to embark on new research. I am currently working on a chapter for an edited collection on Politics and Policy within Private Law, which explains how various statutory and regulatory developments in (relatively) modern times have changed the nature of lenders' rights to possession of mortgaged land.