Louise is a Lecturer in Law, having joined the Open University Law School in 2019. Prior to that she was a Senior Lecturer in Law at Nottingham Trent University from 2006-2017. Louise gained her LLB (Hons) Scots Law and Diploma in Legal Practice from the University of Dundee. She then went on to complete her PGCHE and LLM at Nottingham Trent University. Louise is currently enrolled as a part-time PhD student at the Open University investigating the development of a coercive control defence for domestically abused criminal defendants. Louise is a member of the Socio-Legal Studies Association and the Association of Law Teachers. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Louise's main areas of research interest relate to criminal law and victims' rights. She is currently researching the criminal law's response to coercively controlled defendants who commit crime as a result of the domestic abuse they have suffered, with a particular focus on the development of a coercive control defence to address the gaps evident in the existing criminal law defences regime. She is also interested in criminal justice system decision-making as it relates to vulnerable victims and defendants, and the admissibility of expert evidence in court. Within the Open University Law School Louise is a member of the Feminism, Gender and Law research cluster and the Law and Neuroscience research cluster.
Louise has considerable teaching experience and has taught criminal law, criminology and public law subjects at undergraduate level. She has also supervised several PhDs and taught victims' rights and criminal justice at postgraduate level. At the Open University Louise has taught on a variety of modules including the W101 Introduction to Law module and the W350 Exploring Legal Boundaries module. She was co-module team chair on the W101 module and is currently co-module team chair on the new W111 Criminal Law and the Courts module under development. Louise has an interest in the pedagogy of learning and a particular interest in the development of alternative assessment approaches for law programmes. Louise is also the author of the 12th edition of Elliott and Quinn’s Criminal Law textbook published by Pearson in 2018.
Louise was invited to join two EU funded projects related to victims' rights as a national expert. For one of these she contributed a publication to the final conference proceedings, available here: https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/12056/1/Projekt_5.pdf Louise has also been invited to speak as an expert on legal education, most notably at the Fifth National Spanish Conference on Legal Education held in Valencia.
Louise's collaboration with Professor Jonathan Doak at Nottingham Trent University has helped develop their work in the field of victims' rights, resulting in several notable publications. Louise has also recently co-authored a Criminal Law Review article with Dr Lucy Justice from Nottingham Trent University focused on the impact of misunderstandings of autobiographical memory on police decision-making in rape cases.
Autobiographical memory misconceptions and the police investigative response to rape complaints (2019-10)
Taylor, Louise and Justice, Lucy
The Criminal Law Review, [2019](10) (pp. 827-840)
Establishing Minimum Standards on the Rights, Support and Protection of Crime Victims with Specific Protection Needs (2014)
Taylor, Louise and Boylan-Kemp, Jo Ann
Nottingham Law Journal, 23 (pp. 66-73)
Hearing the voices of victims and offenders: the role of emotions in criminal sentencing (2013)
Doak, Jonathan and Taylor, Louise
Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 64(1) (pp. 25-46)
Meeting European Standards? The Victims’ Code of Practice and the Proposed EU Directive on Victims of Crime (2012)
Taylor, Louise
Durham Law Review, 2(1) (pp. 123-144)
Sentencing in cases of small-scale cannabis production. (2011)
Taylor, Louise
Nottingham Law Journal, 20 (pp. 72-75)
Elliot and Quinn's Criminal Law (12th Edition) (2018)
Louise, Taylor
ISBN : 978-1-292-20848-0 | Publisher : Pearson | Published : Harlow, UK
Hearing the voices of victims and offenders: the role of emotion in criminal sentencing (2014-06-12)
Jonathan, Doak and Louise, Taylor
In: Brooks, Thom ed. Sentencing. Crime and Punishment: Critical Essays in Legal Philosophy
ISBN : 9781409451242 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London
The English and Welsh perspective on legal aid for crime victims (2014)
Taylor, Louise
In: Wiliński, Paweł and Karlik, Piotr eds. Improving protection of victims' rights: access to legal aid (pp. 183-190)
ISBN : 978-83-936610-4-6 | Publisher : Adam Mickiewicz University | Published : Poznan, Poland
Academic poster: Developing a coercive control defence (2019)
Taylor, Louise
In : Socio Legal Studies Association Annual Conference 2019 (2019, Leeds)
Conference paper: Enhancing learning using authentic artefacts (2016)
McCann, Michael and Louise, Taylor
In : Society for Research in Higher Education Annual Conference 2016 (2016, Newport, Wales)
Conference paper: Teaching using authentic artefacts. (2016)
Taylor, Louise and McCann, Michael
In : Trent Institute of Learning and Teaching Annual Conference 2016 (2016, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham)
Academic poster: Developing higher order thinking skills through academic posters. (2016)
Taylor, Louise
In : PedRIO Conference 2016 (2016, Plymouth University, Plymouth)
Conference paper: Injured athlete or crime victim? (2015)
Taylor, Louise
In : Socio Legal Studies Association Annual Conference 2015 (2015, Warwick)
Academic poster: Breaking down barriers to LLM study (2015)
Taylor, Louise and Boyes, Simon
In : Socio Legal Studies Association Annual Conference 2015 (2015, Warwick)
Conference paper: MOOCing the way to numerical literacy in law (2014)
Taylor, Louise
In : Socio Legal Studies Association Annual Conference 2014 (2014, Aberdeen)
Conference paper: Why maths matters in legal education. (2014)
Taylor, Louise
In : Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference 2014 (2014, Leeds)
Conference paper: UK Perspectives on Legal Aid for Crime Victims (2014)
Taylor, Louise
In : Improving Protection of Victims' Rights: Access to Legal Aid (2014, Poznan, Poland)
Academic poster: Breaking down barriers to LLM study (2014)
Taylor, Louise and Boyes, Simon
In : Society for Research in Higher Education Annual Conference 2014 (2014, Newport, Wales)
Conference paper: Developing an International Teaching and Research Culture through the Medium of Dual Degrees (2013)
Taylor, Louise
In : Fifth National Spanish Conference on Legal Education (2013, Valencia, Spain)
Conference paper: Injecting Restorative Justice into Criminal Justice through the Use of Victim Personal Statements (2013)
Taylor, Louise
In : Hatfield College Criminal Justice Colloquium (2013, Durham University, Durham)
Conference paper: Utilising the Victim Personal Statement Scheme as a Vulnerable and Intimidated Victim Early Detection Device (2013)
Taylor, Louise and Boylan Kemp, Jo Ann
In : Socio Legal Studies Association Annual Conference 2013 (2013, York)
Conference paper: Enhancing Numeracy within the QLD (2013)
Taylor, Louise
In : Nottingham Law School Annual Learning and Teaching Conference 2013 (2013, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham)
Academic poster: Mathematical literacy in law (2013)
Taylor, Louise
In : Socio Legal Studies Association Annual Conference 2013 (2013, Edinburgh)
Academic poster: Encouraging numeracy in undergraduate law learning and teaching. (2013)
Taylor, Louise
In : Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference 2013 (2013, Nottingham)
The language and practice of student support for one another: Diverse options for diverse purposes. A practice insight working paper. (2022-01-28)
Forbes, Tina; Fox, Alison; Comfort, Catherine; Taylor, Louise and Mott, Natalie
CollectivED, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds.
Taking an ecological view of student (peer) mentoring (2022-01-28)
Fox, Alison; Comfort, Catherine; Forbes, Tina; Taylor, Louise and Mott, Natalie
CollectivED, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds.
How peer mentoring can support students during the pandemic (2021)
Taylor, Louise and Edwards, Carol
The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
Five reasons why coercive control has increased during Covid-19 (2020)
Lloyd Bright, Keren and Taylor, Louise
The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
Independent legal representation for crime victims (2019-05-22)
Taylor, Louise
The Open University
Developing a coercive control defence. (2019-05-16)
Taylor, Louise
Wiley
True justice? (2015-02-23)
Taylor, Louise
Solicitors Journal
Why is avoiding maths so common in the profession? (2014-02-11)
Taylor, Louise
Solicitors Journal