Biography

Joe is Professor of Public Law at the University of York. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an LLB (Hons) (2013) and PhD in Law (2017). He was then a Lecturer in Public Law at the University of Sheffield (2016-2018) and King’s College London (2018-2019), before moving to the University of York in 2019 and being appointed to a Chair in 2022. In 2023, he was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Law.

Joe has held a range of visiting appointments, most recently as a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School (2024-2025). He has also held visiting posts at the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University (2024), the UCL Department of Political Science (2022), Melbourne Law School (2018), and Osgoode Hall Law School (2017).

He is currently serving as Chair of the Academic Panel of the Administrative Justice Council, a non-statutory oversight body advising government and the judiciary (2022-). He is also a member of the Academic Panel at Blackstone Chambers (2021-) and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, where he co-leads the Transforming Justice Programme (2023-).

Joe was previously an ESRC Parliamentary Academic Fellow in the House of Commons (2019-2020) and served for four years as Research Director of the Public Law Project, a national legal charity (2017-2021). He also spent a period as a Trainee at the EFTA Court, working in President Baudenbacher’s Chambers (2015). He was called to the Bar of England and Wales by Middle Temple (2022).

Joe’s research has been cited in major policy reviews, in both Houses of Parliament, and at all levels in the courts and tribunals, including the High Court, Court of Appeal, and UK Supreme Court. He has also led multiple research partnerships with central government departments, local authorities, and charities.

Research

Joe’s research combines legal and social science methods to advance the understanding of administrative law. He currently pursues most of his research through the Administrative Fairness Lab, where he is his Director and which he co-founded with Simon Halliday (Strathclyde) and Jed Meers (York).  

He also co-leads, with Imran Rasul (UCL/IFS) and Abi Adams (Oxford), the Transforming Justice programme at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which seeks to expand understanding of the justice system through quantitative data and the application of economic analysis.

His work has been funded by a wide range of bodies, including the Nuffield Foundation, Leverhulme Trust, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Research England, and the Abrdn Financial Fairness Trust.

Publications

An updated and comprehensive list of Joe’s publications is maintained on the University of York’s PURE database. Selected key publications are listed below. As far as is possible, they have been made open access.

BOOKS:

  • Artificial Intelligence and Public Law (Hart Bloomsbury, 2025) (forthcoming), with B. McGurk KC (available for pre-order here)

  • Facts in Public Law Adjudication (Hart Bloomsbury, 2023), ed. with A. Carter, with a foreword by Lord Carnwath (available here)

  • Researching Public Law in Common Law Systems (Edward Elgar, 2023), ed. with P. Daly (available here)

  • Experiments in Automating Immigration Systems (BUP, 2022), with J. Maxwell, with a foreword by Justice Kate O’Regan (available here) 

  • The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice (OUP, 2022), ed. with R. Thomas, M. Hertogh, & R. Kirkham (available here)

  • Immigration Judicial Reviews (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), with R. Thomas (available here)

  • Justice in the Digital State (BUP, 2019), with a foreword by Professor Carol Harlow KC (Hon) (available here)

SELECTED RECENT PAPERS:

  • ‘Perceptions of procedural fairness and space for personal narrative’ (2024) Journal of Law and Society, with A. Ryan and J. Meers (forthcoming)

  • ‘Governmental Influence over Rights Consciousness’ (2024) Journal of Law and Society, with S. Halliday, A. Jones, and J. Meers (available here)

  • ‘An ‘interface first’ bureaucracy’ (2024) Social Policy & Administration, with J. Meers and S. Halliday (available here)

  • ‘Does digital status unlawfully penalise EU citizens accessing the UK's private rented sector?’ (2024) Modern Law Review, with J. Meers, A. Welsh, and C. O’Brien (available here)

  • ‘Direct and Vicarious Administrative Burden’ (2024) Journal of Refugee Studies, with S. Halliday, J. Meers, and E. Kasoulide (forthcoming) (available here)

  • ‘Judicial Review during the Pandemic’ (2023) 27(3) Edinburgh Law Review 252, with T. Hickman KC (available here)

  • ‘Creative non-compliance’ (2023) 44(1) Deviant Behaviour 93, with S. Halliday & J. Meers (available here)

  • ‘Why the UK Complied with COVID-19 Lockdown Law’ (2022) 33(3) King’s Law Journal 386, with S. Halliday, N. Finch, J. Meers & M. Wilberforce (available here)

  • ‘Undermining loyalty to legality?’ (2022) 85(6) Modern Law Review 1419, with S. Halliday, N. Finch & J. Meers (available here)

  • ‘Discrimination in digital immigration status’ (2021) 42(2) Legal Studies 315, with J. Maxwell & A. Welsh (available here)

  • ‘Justice in Automated Administration’ (2020) 40(4) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 708 (available here)

  • ‘Do we need a theory of legitimate expectations?’ (2020) 40(2) Legal Studies 28 (available here)

  • ‘A Different Tale of Judicial Power’ [2019] Public Law 537, with R. Thomas (available here)

  • ‘Crowdfunding Public Interest Judicial Reviews’ [2019] Public Law 166 (available here)

SELECTED RECENT CHAPTERS IN BOOKS:

  • ‘Reports of the Death of Cart are Greatly Exaggerated’ in L. Graham and J. Russell (Eds), The Supreme Court at 15: Reflections on Public Law Cases (Routledge, 2024), with R. Thomas (forthcoming) (available here)

  • ‘Missing evidence?’ in J. Tomlinson & A. Carter (eds), Facts in Public Law Adjudication (Hart Bloomsbury, 2023), with C. Somers-Joce (available here)

  • ‘Administrative Law in the Digital World’ in C. Harlow (ed.), A Research Agenda for Administrative Law (Edward Elgar, 2023), with P. Daly & J. Raso (available here)

  • ‘Why we need to rethink procedural fairness for the digital age and how we should do it’ in B. Brożek, O. Kanevskaia, and P. Pałka (eds), Research Handbook on Law and Technology (Edward Elgar 2023), with J. Meers and S. Halliday

  • ‘New Labour’s Administrative Justice Legacy’ in A. Tucker & M. Gordon (eds.), The New Labour Constitution (Hart Bloomsbury, 2022), with R. Kirkham (available here)

  • ‘Rights and Solidarity during COVID-19’ in D. Cowan & A. Mumford (eds.), Pandemic Legalities (Bristol University Press, 2021), with S. Halliday & J. Meers (available here)

  • ‘Beyond the end of ouster clause history?’ in L. Stirton, T.T. Arvind, R. Kirkham, & D. Mac Síthigh (eds), Executive Decision-making and the Courts (Hart Bloomsbury, 2021) (available here)

  • ‘Reforming Judicial Review Costs Rules in an Age of Austerity’ in. A. Higgins (ed.), The Civil Procedure Rules Twenty Years On (Oxford University Press, 2020), with A. Pickup (available here)

SELECTED KEY SHORT ARTICLES AND CASE NOTES:

  • ‘Does administrative law inhibit good government?’ (2024) 28 Edinburgh Law Review 264, with Simon Halliday (available here)

  • ‘Who builds digital government?’ [2023] Public Law 196, with V. Adelmant (available here)

  • ‘Judicial review of public data gaps’ [2023] Judicial Review, with J. Meers & C. Somers-Joce (available here)

  • ‘How Public is Public Law?’ [2022] Judicial Review 95, with D. Hoadley, E. Nemsic & C. Somers-Joce (available here)

  • ‘For the record’ [2022] Public Law 368, with C. Somers-Joce (available here)

  • ‘Certainty at all costs?’ [2022] Judicial Review 255, with R. Thomas (available here)

  • ‘Empowering Tribunals to Enforce the Human Rights Act 1998’ (2020) 83(3) Modern Law Review 652, with A. Sinclair (available here)

  • ‘In Defence of the Court?’ (2020) 14(9) Geography Compass e12499, with N. Gill & J. Hynes (available here)

Teaching and supervision

Joe is largely focused on research at present. He is currently supervising several research students and postdocs. He is happy to speak to prospective postgraduate research students and to support postdoctoral applications in his areas of research.

Joe is regularly invited to deliver guest lectures and has taught in this capacity at several institutions, including New York University, Melbourne University, and the London School of Economics.