Rate My Professor Emma Hitchings

Professor Emma Hitchings is a Professor of Family Law at the University of Bristol Law School, where she serves as Deputy Head of School. She holds an LLB and a PhD from the University of Wales. Her primary research and teaching interests center on family law, with a particular emphasis on financial remedies upon divorce and broader aspects of family justice. Hitchings has led several significant empirical research projects that have provided critical insights into family law practices. As principal investigator of the Nuffield Foundation-funded Fair Shares project (2021-2025), she conducted surveys with recent divorcees and in-depth interviews to map financial arrangements reached by couples in England and Wales, both through the courts and informally. This work examined the processes of reaching settlements, professional advice sought, and challenges in implementation, offering evidence to inform legal reform, professional guidance, and policy development. Other key projects under her leadership include an examination of final settlements in financial disputes following divorce, focusing on the timing and context of consent orders, and research on litigants in person in private family law cases.