Julia Davis is an Associate Professor in Law and Program Director in Law and Legal Studies at the School of Law in the UniSA Business School. As Associate Professor in Law she teaches in the Honours program and researches in tort law, sentencing law and jury studies. As Program Director, she supports students in the law and legal studies programs.
Julia Davis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (BA), and Honours degree in Law (LLB) and a PhD in law. Her current research focuses on developing new methods of measuring informed public opinion on sentencing and her research findings have been published both nationally and internationally, including in the British Journal of Criminology and in Punishment and Society. Over the period from 2007- present, Associate Professor Davis and her research colleagues have been awarded three large research grants from the Criminology Research Council and the Australian Research Council to develop and apply an innovative method of using juries to gauge informed public opinion on sentencing. She was commended for her contributions to research excellence by the Business School in 2014 and is frequently invited to present the results of her research at national conferences and to share her findings with members of the judiciary.
Associate Professor Julia Davis has extensive teaching experience at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and has taught Tort Law, Jurisprudence, Sentencing Law and Conflicts (Private International Law). She has a strong commitment to helping students to develop their legal, advocacy and communications skills and has been recognised many times for her leadership in teaching. She won the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Tasmania for her innovative teaching practices, her achievements in developing imaginative and creative teaching and learning resources, and for her ability to enthuse, inspire and support her students. In 2012 and 2014 she was presented with Business School Awards for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. In 2012, as part of a new initiative by Oxford University Press, she published an innovative book entitled Connecting with Tort Law, which combined an exposition of the law with a detailed guide to the essential legal, study and problem solving skills that torts students must master. More recently, Associate Professor Davis has developed a new course honours course that takes students through the process of researching, writing and editing a scholarly article for publication in the University of South Australia Student Law Review. Associate Professor Davis is the supervising academic editor of this innovative journal, which aims to showcase original student research and create a multi-disciplinary dialogue between law students and the profession by inviting commentary from academics, lawyers, judges and practitioners from both Australian and international jurisdictions.
Associate Professor Julia Davis has engaged with judges and juries in local and national intermediate and supreme courts through her national research into jury sentencing and public opinion on sentencing and brings more than 19 years of experience in legal research and law teaching to the School of Law in the UniSA Business School.