Our Law Careers Counsellor

Ursula Smartt is Associate Professor of Law at Northeastern University London and holds a visiting fellowship at Leeds Law School (Leeds Beckett University). She was awarded a Visiting Professorship at the Max Planck Institute, Freiburg, Germany in 2001 for her comparative research into ‘stalking’ and ‘public fear of crime’. She has published extensively in international refereed journals in media and entertainment law, on topics such as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Slapps), regulating online harm, internet libel, privacy and freedom of expression, superinjunctions and court reporting and AI and intellectual property law. Smartt’s leading textbook, Media and Entertainment Law (Routledge) is the leading textbook on law and journalism courses. Other successful books include Media Law for Journalists; Law for Criminologists and Optimize Public Law. Her publication record in international legal and academic journals is extensive, largely focussing on AI and the law.

In addition to Ursula’s esteemed academic career as media lawyer, she is a highly experienced Criminologist with extensive research expertise in prison policy and practice. She regularly acts as consultant to international prison administrations and ministries of justice, specifically in prisoner labour and correctional industries. She advises on economic aspects of prison industries, introducing real labour models into prison factories and incentivising outside contractors to manufacture their goods inside prisons, thereby paying prisoners realistic wages and increasing non-monetary incentives. Ursula has advised on prisoners’ earnings legislation in the UK and other EU countries, such as Germany, Latvia and Moldova. Her track record in prison consultancies includes several German ‘Länder’; The Netherlands; Belgium; Italy; Sweden; Czech Republic; Hungary; the USA (federal and state); Canada (Ontario); Australia (New South Wales); the Turks & Caicos Islands (UK) and India. She served for nearly twenty years as magistrate (Justice of the Peace) as Presiding Justice in adult and youth criminal courts (West London, Surrey and Sussex).