Renata Grossi

Renata Grossi is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where she has been employed since June 2017. She serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry and is affiliated with both the UTS Ageing Research Collaborative (UARC) and UTS Research Centre. Her interdisciplinary scholarship critically examines the relationship between law and emotion across theoretical and practical dimensions, with particular focus on how emotional thinking challenges traditional legal assumptions about objectivity and rationality.

Dr. Grossi's research program centers on contract law, legal theory, and the intersections of law with emotion, love, and social justice. She investigates whether contract law can move beyond classical and neo-classical theories to engage with questions of social justice and potentially steer market relations away from predatory neoliberal paradigms. Her current projects include examining the practice and power of contracts in counseling services in Australia, exploring how feminist methodological discourses can influence law and emotion scholarship, and analyzing law's rhetoric around the relationship between money and intimacy. Her work demonstrates how emotional thinking doesn't undermine legal reasoning but can enhance it, challenging the traditional view that emotion destroys objectivity in law.

Her extensive publication record shows a clear evolution from examining love in legal discourse to more recent investigations of how #MeToo movement insights might transform contract law understandings of consent. This progression reflects her commitment to addressing power dynamics, social inequality, and the limitations of traditional contract theory. Her scholarship consistently bridges theoretical legal analysis with practical applications, making significant contributions to socio-legal studies and critical legal theory.

Dr. Grossi is actively involved in research supervision, being available for Masters Research and PhD student supervision. She has secured research funding, including the "When Contract Law goes to Therapy" project (2022-2024) funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association Research Grants Scheme. Her teaching focuses on Contract Law and Legal Theory, where she incorporates innovative approaches by inviting students to consider legal problems emotionally to deepen their understanding of law's relationship with political and economic contexts.

Her scholarly contributions extend to editorial work, including guest editing the "Contract in Life and Law" blog series for the Socio-Legal Studies Association of the UK and editing a special edition of Law in Context on "Law and Love." She is also the co-author of "The Radicalism of Romantic Love: Critical Perspectives" (2017) and author of "Looking for Love in the Legal Discourse of Marriage" (2014). Her work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals 5 (Gender Equality), 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), and 10 (Reduced Inequalities), reflecting her commitment to using legal scholarship to address systemic inequalities.