Friederike Gehrke

Friederike Gehrke is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale), Germany. She is affiliated with the Department of Law & Social Anthropology and is a member of the Max Planck Research Group Transformations in Private Law: Culture, Climate, and Technology, supervised by Dr. Mareike Schmidt.

• Education: Second State Examination in Law (2010, Berlin), Master of Laws (LL.M.) in European Law (2008, College of Europe Bruges), First State Examination in Law (2007, Berlin and Brandenburg), Licence en Droit in French Law (2004, University of Paris X), with studies at University of Potsdam and University of Paris X.

Her research explores the intersection of Private Law, Criminal Law, and European Law with Cultural Anthropology, focusing on judicial impartiality in plural societies. Her doctoral project, Judicial Impartiality in Plural Societies: Significance and Influence of Perceptions of Normality in German Civil Law, examines how cultural diversity, climate change, and digitalization impact legal decision-making.

She has received multiple scholarships, including from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. Her professional experience includes serving as a judge at the District Court, Berlin (since 2015), secondments to the Senate Department for Justice, Consumer Protection and Anti-Discrimination (2017–2020), the registry of the Federal Council (2020–2021), and the Senate Department for Justice and Consumer Protection (2023–2024).

• Language Skills: Native German, fluent English and French, basic Spanish.