Nicola Monaghan

Principal Lecturer in Law

Institute of Arts and Humanities

School of Law

Contact Details

email: n.monaghan@worc.ac.uk

Nicola joined the University of Worcester in 2016. Specialising in Criminal Law, Criminal Justice, Procedure, and Evidence, she has taught across both the LLB and LLM programmes. She currently teaches Criminal Law and the Law of Evidence on the LLB programme and supervises both undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations. Nicola has held key leadership roles at the University, including Course Leader and Head of Department. She actively contributes to programme re-approval and curriculum development within the Law School and serves as an experienced external examiner for other institutions. She is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA).

Nicola holds an LLB from the University of Warwick and an LLM in Criminal Litigation from City University, London. She is an unregistered barrister, having completed the Bar Vocational Course at City University, London and is a member of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.

Nicola is the author is of two leading textbooks, Criminal Law Directions (Oxford University Press, now in its 8th edition) and Law of Evidence (Cambridge University Press). She is currently under contract with Hart Publishing to write a newly commissioned, updated edition of her Law of Evidence textbook. She has also authored several other widely used teaching texts, including Beginning Contract Law (Routledge) and Law Express Q&A Criminal Law (Pearson). 

Her primary research focuses on the criminal trial and jury misconduct. She has published extensively on the jury in prominent journals, including the Criminal Law Review, the Journal of Criminal Law, and Information and Communications Technology Law, and she regularly contributes case comments to the Journal of Criminal Law. 

Nicola is currently working on an edited collection on the Leveson Review, which she is co-editing with Dr Ed Johnston. She previously edited the collection Contemporary Challenges in the Jury System: A Comparative Perspective (Routledge, 2024) and co-edited and contributed to Financial Crime and Corporate Misconduct: A Critical Evaluation of Fraud Legislation (Routledge, 2018).

As the series editor for Routledge Studies in Courts and Legal Systems, Nicola welcomes book proposals that align with the aims of the series. 

You can learn more about Nicola's research on her ORCID iD

Teaching Interests

Nicola teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Justice and the Law of Evidence on the LLB. She also supervises dissertations and has previously taught Criminal Law and Practice on the LLM in Legal Practice.

Qualifications

• PhD (currently studying, due to complete by March 2029)
• Bar Vocational Course (2001, City, University of London)
• LLM Criminal Litigation (2000, City, University of London)
• LLB Law (Hons) (1999, Warwick University)