Professor David Schiff, LLB (Hons)
Professor of Law
David Schiff joined Queen Mary in September 2006 as a Professor in Law, having previously held the position of Reader in Law at the LSE. He has written extensively with Richard Nobles since 1990 on criminal appeals and miscarriages of justice. Together they obtained an Economic and Social Research Council Research Award in 1991/92 to investigate the role of the Court of Appeal in remedying miscarriages of justice involving the re-assessment of expert evidence. The research led to a submission to the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. More recently their collaboration has involved numerous publications and seminar papers on diverse topics applying autopoietic systems theory. His research interests currently involve the application of autopoietic systems theory to jurisprudence in general, and appeal systems within law, in particular.
As a long serving member of the LSE, Professor Schiff wrote the chapter on law, 'Freedom according to Law', in the LSE book Freedom (edited by Eileen Barker), which was published as part of the LSE's centenary celebrations in 1995. He is currently on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of the Sociology of Law . In the past he has been involved in the media, having appeared many times on radio and television, and having written a number of newspaper articles. Professor Schiff has an active interest in education, having taught on courses at the Institute of Education, University of London. He was a member of the University of London working party into the future of undergraduate degrees in the University of London, 1992/93.
Key publications
- (with R Nobles) 'Disobedience to Law - Debbie Purdy's Case' (2010) 73 Modern Law Review 295
- (with R Nobles) ‘Public confidence in criminal justice: the lessons from miscarriages of justice’ (2009) 48(5) Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 461
- (with R Nobles), 'After Ten Years: An Investment in Justice?' in M. Naughton (ed) The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Hope for the Innocent? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), ch.11
- (with R Nobles) ‘Why do judges talk the way they do?’ (2009) 5.1 International Journal of Law in Context 25
- (with R Nobles), 'Jurisprudence as Self-Description: Natural Law and Positivism within the English Legal System' in G-P Calliess, A Fischer-Lescano, D Wielsch and P Zumbansen (eds) Soziologische Jurisprudenz: Festschrift fur Gunther Teubner (De Gruyter Recht, 2009), 359-374.
- (with R Nobles), ‘Criminal Cases Review Commission’ 268, ‘Miscarriages of Justice’ 796, ‘Systems Theory’ 1149, in P Cane and J Conaghan (eds) The New Oxford Companion to Law (OUP, 2008).
- (with R Nobles) ‘Absurd Asymmetry - a Comment on R v Cottrell and Fletcher and BM, KK and DP (Petitioners) v Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission’ (2008) 71 Modern Law Review 464
- (with R Nobles) Review of O Perez and G Teubner (eds), Paradoxes and Inconsistencies in the Law, (2007) 70 Modern Law Review 505
- (with R Nobles) 'The Emperor's New Clothes', Review Article of Ronald Dworkin, Justice in Robes, (2007) 70 Modern Law Review 139
- (with R Nobles) 'Theorising the Criminal Trial and Criminal Appeal: Finality, Truth and Rights' in A Duff, L Farmer, S Marshall and V Tadros (eds), The Trial on Trial, Volume 2 (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2006), ch 14
- (with R Nobles) 'Communicating Moral Responsibility through Criminal Law', Review of V Tadros, Criminal Responsibility, (2006) 26 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 207
- (with R Nobles) A Sociology of Jurisprudence (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2006)
- (with R Nobles) 'A Sociology of Jurisprudence' in M Freeman (ed), Law and Sociology (OUP, Oxford, 2006) ch 3
- ( with R Nobles) 'Guilt and Innocence in the Criminal Justice System: A Comment on R (Mullen) v Secretary of State for the Home Department ' (2006) 69 The Modern Law Review 80
- (with R Nobles) 'A reply to Graham Zellick' Criminal Law Review [2005] 951
- (with R Nobles) 'Misleading Statistics within Criminal Trials' (2005) 2 Significance 17
- (with R Nobles) 'The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Establishing a Workable Relationship with the Court of Appeal' [2005] Criminal Law Review 173
- (with R Nobles) 'A Story of Miscarriage: Law in the Media' (2004) 31 Journal of Law and Society 221
- (with R Nobles) 'Introduction' to the English translation of N Luhmann, Law as a Social System (edited by F Kastner, R Nobles, D Schiff and R Ziegert) (OUP, Oxford, 2004)
- (with J Penner and R Nobles (eds)), Introduction to Jurisprudence and Legal Theory: Commentary and Materials (Butterworths, London, 2002, now published by OUP)
- (with R Nobles) 'The Right to Appeal and Workable Systems of Justice' (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 676
- (with R Nobles) 'Criminal Justice: Autopoietic Insights' in Law's New Boundaries: The Consequences of Legal Autopoiesis (eds) J Pribán and D.Nelken (Ashgate, Dartmouth, 2001) ch 9
- (with R Nobles) 'Due process and Dirty Harry Dilemmas: Criminal Appeals and the Human Rights Act' (2001) 64 Modern Law Review 911
- (with R Nobles) 'The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Reporting Success?' (2001) 64 Modern Law Review 64, 280
- (with R Nobles) Understanding Miscarriages of Justice: Law, the Media, and the Inevitability of Crisis (OUP, Oxford, 2000)
Postgraduate supervision
Professor Schiff welcomes proposals for postgraduate supervision in the fields of criminal appeals and miscarriages of justice, and the application of autopoietic systems theory that involves the legal system's relationship to other subsystems of communication.
Centre for Criminal Justice website
