ProfessorLisa Burton Crawford

I am a Professor of Public and Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney Law School. I have expertise in constitutional law, administrative law, and statutory interpretation and my research typically focuses on the intersection between these areas of doctrine.

I do theoretically informed doctrinal work - for example, using theories of the rule of law, constitutionalism and the philosophical study of language to cast better light on how courts should interpret constitutional and statutory texts. I also do normative work, examining whether long-standing values and principles of public law remain fit for purpose. This includes a body of work examining the complexity of contemporary legislation, which seems to undermine classical notions of the rule of law. I am interested in technological solutions (like rules as code) that might help government actors and the public to understand their legal positions and perform their legal functions, and the broader challenge of vindicating fundamental constitutional norms and values in complex legal systems.

My research routinely appears in national and international journals. I am also the author of the Rule of Law and the Australian Constitution (Federation Press, 2017) and the lead author of Public Law and Statutory Interpretation: Principles and Practive (Federation Press, 2021), which is a prescribed text at several Australian law schools. I was appointed a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law as recognition of my contributions to the discipline. 

I am the inaugural Co-Director of Sydney Public Law, a centre dedicated to advancing research and teaching in public law at the University of Sydney. In this role I lead a range of initiatives for promoting engagement between public law academics, the community, the profession and the judiciary. I am also co-Chair of the International Society of Public Law's Australia/New Zealand Chapter, and co-Convenor of ICON-S Aus/NZ's Constitutional Theory Group. I have previously been on Faculty at UNSW (where I served with Rosalind Dixon as Deputy Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law) and Monash University.

I completed my PhD under the supervision of Professor Jeffrey Goldsworthy at Monash University, for which I awarded the Faculty medal, and spent time as a visiting doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. I hold a first class honours degrees in Law/Arts from the University of Western Australia and a Bachelor of Civil Laws (Distinction) from the University of Oxford.