Julian Webb

Professor Julian Webb is a Professor at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, a position he has held since 2014. Previously, he held chairs at the Universities of Warwick and Westminster in the UK. He has served as 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 as a visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. Recognised internationally as an expert on legal education policy and development, Webb was the former Director of the Higher Education Academy’s UK Centre for Legal Education. He led the research phase of the Legal Education and Training Review for England and Wales (2011-13) and served as a consultant to the Hong Kong government’s Comprehensive Review of Legal Education and Training (2016-18). He is the founding editor of the international journal Legal Ethics and sits on the advisory boards of the International Journal of the Legal Profession, Revista Educacion y Derecho, and Legal Ethics. With Professor John Paterson of the University of Aberdeen, he edits the 'Law, Science and Society' book series published by Routledge. At Melbourne Law School, he directs Staff Development for Law Academic Associates and serves as Graduate Research Coordinator. He was a member of the Academic Course Accreditation Committee of the Victorian Legal Admission Board (2021-24; 2024-27) and currently chairs the NHMRC Human Research Ethics Committee at Grampians Health and St John of God Hospital, Ballarat.

Webb’s research interests include technological and regulatory disruption in courts and legal services, through collaboration with the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics’ ‘AI, Law, and Legal Institutions’ research stream, lawyer wellbeing, and ethical theory and practice in the legal profession. He has authored and edited key works such as Professional Legal Ethics: Critical Interrogations (Oxford University Press, 2000, with Donald Nicholson), Lawyering Skills and the Legal Process (Cambridge University Press, 2005, with Caroline Maughan), and Leading Works in Legal Ethics (Routledge, 2023). His article ‘Legal Technology: The Great Disruption’, in Lawyers in 21st Century Societies (eds Abel et al), was shortlisted for the Australian Legal Research Awards 2023. In 2016, an International Bar Association study identified him as one of the world’s fifteen most cross-cited scholars on innovation and disruption in legal services.

Professional Email: julian.webb@unimelb.edu.au