Lisa Cowan

Lisa Cowan is a Research Fellow and PhD candidate at the Centre for Legal History, Edinburgh Law School. Her academic roles include Fellow in Legal History, Tutor in Civil Law, Medieval Worlds, and Public Law, and Ad hoc lecturer in Legal Reasoning. She holds an LL.M. in U.S. Law (Science, Technology & IP), an LL.B. in Scots Law, and an MA in Languages (Interpreting/Translating). Formerly a litigation attorney in California and a Romance languages translator, she now focuses on legal history.

Research interests span Scottish legal history, Roman law, litigation practices, and civil procedure. Her doctoral thesis examines judicial liability doctrines in Late Medieval Scots law. She has presented at major conferences like the Fifteenth Century Conference (Oxford) and the British Legal History Conference (Bristol).

Active in academic administration, she serves as Director of Research for the LGBTQ+ Law Society, Convenor of the Henry Goudy Seminar, and holds multiple committee roles across Law and History departments. Her teaching includes undergraduate courses on Civil Law, Medieval History, and Historiography.