Dr. Susan Leahy

Biography

Susan Leahy, BCL, LLM, PhD (UCC), is a senior lecturer in law at UL. Susan's primary research interests lie in the areas of criminal justice (with particular emphasis on sexual violence and victims of crime) and family law (specifically domestic abuse and marriage). Her PhD research was funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Her thesis was entitled The Rules and Realities of Consent in Irish Sexual Offences Law: Perspectives on Reform and examined the rules relating to consent in Irish sexual offences legislation. She has published her research on sexual offences, victims' rights and family law in both national and international journals including the Common Law World Review, the International Journal of Evidence and Proof, the Journal of Criminal Law, and the Child and Family Law Quarterly. She has co-authored two books: Sexual Offending in Ireland: Laws, Procedures and Punishment, (Clarus, 2018) (with Dr Margaret Fitzgerald-O'Reilly) and The Victim in the Irish Criminal Process (Manchester University Press, 2018) (with Prof Shane Kilcommins, Dr Kathleen Moore-Walsh and Dr Eimear Spain). She has completed a number of funded research projects on sexual offences, gender-based violence and victims of crime.
Susan lectures in Criminology, Family Law and Media Law. She completed a specialist diploma in Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at UL in 2014. She is the director of the BA (Criminal Justice) and co-director of the Centre for Crime, Justice and Victim Studies (CCJVS).