Karin Linhart

Dr. Karin Linhart, LL.M. (Duke), serves as Akademische Oberrätin at the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Law at the University of Würzburg, where she has worked since November 2005. She is the head of the program for legal languages and foreign law, responsible for lectures on Anglo-American, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Turkish law and their respective legal languages. Her role combines academic leadership with significant teaching responsibilities across multiple legal systems.

Dr. Linhart earned her law degree from the University of Würzburg (1991-1996), completed her first state examination in January 1997, and finished her practical legal training (Referendariat) in November 1999 with stations at the European Commission in Brussels, the Federal Ministry of Justice in Berlin, and Kirkpatrick & Lockhart in Pittsburgh, USA. She earned her doctorate on Uniform International Law while working as an academic assistant under Prof. Dr. Karl Kreuzer and later Prof. Dr. Eva-Maria Kieninger. She completed an LL.M. at Duke University School of Law (2003/04) and successfully finished her Habilitation on national and transnational collective redress in May 2012.

Her research focuses on German Civil Law and Civil Procedure, Private International Law with particular emphasis on collective redress mechanisms, Comparative Law (especially US, EU, and African legal systems), and Legal Development Cooperation. She has made significant contributions to understanding class actions and similar procedures across different jurisdictions. Her work bridges theoretical legal scholarship with practical applications in cross-border legal contexts, particularly examining how different legal systems handle collective disputes.

Her publications demonstrate a consistent trajectory from foundational work on legal language to sophisticated comparative analysis of collective redress mechanisms across approximately 25 legal systems worldwide. She has developed expertise in both common law and civil law traditions, with growing emphasis on African legal systems and their integration into global legal frameworks.

• Nominated for ars legendi-Preis für exzellente Hochschullehre (2007)
• Scholarship for Habilitation work (2010-2011)

Dr. Linhart has supervised numerous students through her teaching positions and has been instrumental in establishing academic cooperation between the University of Würzburg and the University of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She founded the German-Congolese Lawyers Association (DKoJV) in 2009, serving as its president, with the goal of supporting excellent Congolese young lawyers on their path to professorship. She served as Principal Investigator for an interdisciplinary research project on 'foundations for increasing prosperity in the DR Congo' funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (2010-2011).

She leads the German-Congolese research cooperation, which has developed numerous projects in research and teaching between the Universities of Würzburg and Kinshasa since 2009, including teaching programs for Congolese law students and professionals. Her work has established a sustainable academic bridge between European and African legal education, with particular focus on developing legal capacity in the Democratic Republic of Congo.