Shaunnagh Dorsett

Distinguished Professor Shaunnagh Dorsett serves as Associate Dean (Research) at the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney, where she has been appointed since October 20, 2021. Her interdisciplinary research spans legal history, jurisprudence, and contemporary indigenous rights to land, with particular focus on concepts of authority, jurisdiction, and sovereignty within colonial and post-colonial contexts.

Professor Dorsett earned her BA/LLB (Hons) from the University of Tasmania, an LLM from the University of Calgary, and a PhD from UNSW Sydney. Her academic credentials reflect her deep engagement with both Australian and international legal traditions.

Dorsett's research interests center on the complex interplay between legal doctrine, legal history, and the history of political thought, particularly as they relate to colonial encounters and indigenous legal orders. She has made significant contributions to understanding how colonial judges navigated jurisdictional questions in settler colonies, especially in New Zealand during the 19th century. Her work examines how legal concepts were transplanted, adapted, and contested across the British Empire, with particular attention to Maori legal history and the development of plural legal orders.

Her extensive publication record reveals consistent scholarly engagement with themes of legal authority, colonial governance, and indigenous rights. The articles demonstrate a progression from early work on specific colonial legal cases toward broader theoretical explorations of jurisdiction and sovereignty within imperial frameworks. A significant portion of her research focuses on the British Empire's legal mechanisms for incorporating diverse territories, with particular attention to procedural reforms, charters of justice, and the complex relationship between metropolitan legal theory and colonial practice.

• Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Legal History
• Member of the Advisory Board of the European Society for Comparative Legal History
• Co-founder of the Legal Histories of Empires conference series
• Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law

Professor Dorsett has secured significant research funding, including an Australian Research Council grant for her current project examining curial reform in the British Empire following the Napoleonic Wars. She plays a vital leadership role in the academic community through editorial work on influential legal history collections and service on editorial boards of major journals. Her work has established her as a leading scholar in legal history, particularly in the areas of colonial legal encounters and the theoretical foundations of jurisdiction.