Catherine Shephard

I enjoyed reading Law at Emmanuel College, Cambridge following a happy and productive education at Central Newcastle High School for Girls.

I qualified as a corporate lawyer with Addleshaw Goddard where I specialised in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and capital markets work. This included a secondment to Airtours Group plc, where I learned much about business and clients, later working as part of their advisory team on their £852M hostile bid for First Choice plc.

While in practice I was an Invited Speaker at the University of Law, who offered me a role in Higher Education I felt excited to accept. There I led professional training in business law and legal skills, teaching qualified and trainee solicitors in leading law firms, and postgraduate students in their final stage of training to become qualified solicitors. I also delivered The Law Society’s accredited Management Training Course, covering essential aspects of management, leadership and career progression for solicitors seeking a leadership role. My first textbooks were published, on Legal Skills, and Public Companies and Equity Finance.

In 2012 Manchester Law School offered an excellent opportunity to further diversify my expertise and experience. In addition to professional training, here I have been able to develop my academic profile, collaborate widely, publish in academic journals and conference papers as well as professional publications and student textbooks, and lead teaching and learning in business law, legal skills and law firm management to undergraduate and postgraduate students across our law and business schools. 

I feel fortunate to be able to draw on all of my positive experiences of education and practice to inform and shape my leadership in legal education, pedagogy and citizenship. 

My aim is to mobilise for good my academic scholarship and professional expertise in legal education, pedagogy and legal practice. My objective is to support everyone I connect with through my work to navigate themselves successfully through their experiences, within a responsive and sympathetic, policy-forming environment. My expertise centres around the theme of connection, across the entire arc of the student journey, from before transition into university, to well beyond the achievement of graduate outcomes and into professional life.

1. Practice-Informed Legal Education and Pedagogy

My work impacts upon innovation in two key areas:

Legal Skills

My work is supporting the delivery of demonstrable change in the incorporation of legal skills into legal education nationally. My co-authored textbook published by Oxford University Press, Legal Systems and Skills, has been widely adopted across the sector. It responds to the increasing emphasis on skills and the growing alignment between academic and professional legal education. 

Professional Life

My work is shaping the way in which professional legal education and training is delivered and assessed nationally. Founded upon my fee-earning as a corporate lawyer in practice, I have enjoyed working collaboratively with leading law firms and in-house legal departments, legal education providers, and professional, statutory and regulatory bodies including the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Chartered Institute for Legal Executives and the Ministry of Justice. 

2. Social Mobility, Social Justice and Outreach

I have particular interest in the role legal education can play in social mobility and justice. As School Outreach Lead I connect my team with schools and colleges to develop key, transferable, professional skills which will support all learners to flourish in their transition to, and journey through, university and beyond. Working together with teachers we encourage the idea that realising potential through Higher Education is enjoyable, nurture a sense of belonging in the HE space well before arrival, and, through our award-winning First Generation Scholarship Programme, offer support to make it possible.  I work collaboratively with the Social Mobility Business Partnership and other legal education charities and our own Widening Participation team, and I have worked previously with Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce’s Education Business Solutions initiative and the Streetlaw Project.