Professor Rebecca Mitchell

Head Of School

School: Northumbria School of Law

Dr Rebecca Mitchell is a Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. Rebecca is a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College and the UKRI Talent Peer Review College. She has been involved with a number of law journals as guest editor, section editor and reviewer, including as Deputy Editor of the International Journal of Evidence and Proof.

Rebecca has won funding from the Modern Law Review on two occasions to support seminars, in July 2022 and in April 2024, bringing practitioners and academics together to debate various aspects of Legal Professional Privilege. In October 2023 Rebecca won funding from the Leverhulme Trust to bring a leading Evidence academic from the United States, Professor Henry Zhuaho Wang, to the Law School for three months. Rebecca is currently involved in Project Odyssey-opening the National Archive's legal data to AI for A2J, funded by Innovate UK.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Rebecca's primary research interests relate to the operation of legal professional privilege (LPP) and related ethical issues in a variety of contexts such as corporate governance, taxation, legal technology, deferred prosecution agreements and legal advice to Government. LPP is an under researched evidential area yet has a significant and far-reaching impact on society and is of fundamental importance to all lawyers. Rebecca has been published in a range of national and international journals of the highest quality, including the International Journal of Evidence and Proof and the Modern Law Review.

Rebecca is currently undertaking research focussed on expert evidence in cell site geolocation . She will be presenting at the 2nd Michele Taruffo Girona Evidence week in early June 2025.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
A Privileged and Conventional Relationship: Legal Professional Privilege and the Law Officers' Convention, Mitchell, R., Stockdale, M. 1 Jan 2024, In: Modern Law Review
Criminal Justice and Technology, Mitchell, R., Stockdale, M. 13 Apr 2024, In: The Journal of Criminal Law
Technological challenges for modern law school pedagogy – preparing graduates for the modern legal workplace, Alexander, J., McConnell, S., Mitchell, R., McGrane, A. 2 Jan 2024, In: The Law Teacher
The Search and Seizure of Digital Materials Under Warrant and Protecting Privilege: Comparative Analysis and Recommendations for Best Practice, Mitchell, R., Stockdale, M., Gilligan, F. 1 Apr 2024, In: The Journal of Criminal Law
Legal Advice Privilege: The legacy of Three Rivers (No. 5) and the challenge of providing consistent protection to all client types, Stockdale, M., Mitchell, R. 1 Apr 2022, In: The International Journal of Evidence & Proof
Deferred prosecution agreements and legal professional privilege/attorney-client privilege: English and US experience compared, Mitchell, R., Imwinkelried, E., Stockdale, M. 11 Jun 2021, In: Journal of International and Comparative Law
Legal Advice Privilege and Artificial Legal Intelligence: Can Robots Give Privileged Legal Advice?, Stockdale, M., Mitchell, R. 1 Oct 2019, In: The International Journal of Evidence & Proof
Legal advice privilege in the taxation context: disconnected ethical regimes for lawyers and tax advisers in the United States and New Zealand, Mitchell, R. 1 Mar 2018, In: New Zealand Journal of Taxation Law and Policy
Legal Professional Privilege in Corporate Criminal Investigations: challenges and solutions in the modern age, Stockdale, M., Mitchell, R. 1 Aug 2018, In: The Journal of Criminal Law
The crime-fraud exception in Anglo-American jurisprudence: comparative dimensions and optimal reform proposals in the taxation context, Mitchell, R., Stockdale, M. 13 Mar 2017, In: British Tax Review

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Oral presentation: Legal Professional Privilege and the Law Officers' Convention 2022
Oral presentation: Legal Professional Privilege and the Investigation of Corporate Crime 2018

PGR Supervision

Catherine Needham Start Date: 27/04/2023
Ben Mannering From a “car crash” to a Directive; Does the lack of harmonised Insurance Guarantee Scheme arrangements in the EU hinger effective and equal consumer protection? Start Date: 06/09/2022 End Date: 31/10/2025