Congratulations to Prof. Laura Hoyano, this week’s winner in our iPad giveaway. Prof. Hoyano’s favourite feature of colwiz is that it syncs across so many platforms – she has a Windows PC, Android smartphone and now a brand new iPad!

We have only one more iPad mini to give away this May so don’t wait, sign up today!

Q & A with Prof. Hoyano

Aside from being able to sync your libraries and work across devices, what other features of colwiz do you appreciate the most?

I like the Web Importer, which pulls articles from any website and adds them to my colwiz Library. I also appreciate that colwiz is free, and therefore I can recommend it to my research students.

Did you use any other reference management software before colwiz?

I previously used EndNote.

What are your principal research interests?

I work at the intersections of different areas of law. I am best known for my work in vulnerable witnesses and child abuse law, exploring the way abuse allegations are litigated in criminal law, family law, tort law, human rights law, and the operation of the rules of evidence in those courts. I also teach and publish more widely in tort, evidence, medical law and ethics as well as European human rights law.

Recent publications:

My book (co-authored with Caroline Keenan), Child Abuse Law and Policy Across Boundaries (OUP 2007, 2010), which was awarded the Inner Temple Book Prize, is due for a third edition. In January 2014 I published an article in the Criminal Law Review, “What is Balanced on the Scales of Justice? In Search of the Essence of the Right to a Fair Trial”, which has proved to be quite controversial, as I had hoped.

What do you like doing outside of the law (no pun intended)?

Choral singing, classical music, visiting historical properties, travelling on the Continent, countryside walking, figure skating, quilting, and trying to understand my three cats!

What are you working on at the moment, and what are your research plans for the future?

I am currently co-writing (with Nicholas Bamforth) a massive book for OUP entitled “Human Rights Law and Principles in the UK”. I am also writing chapters of two books on medical law and ethics and on child witnesses. After that, I am planning to write a book on the theory of a fair trial at common law and under human rights law, and thereafter a book on the intersections between human rights and tort law.

What do you like and dislike about the research environment?

Likes: the daily quest for a solution to tricky legal problems; the exhilaration of learning something new every day.

Dislikes: the fact that because all of the areas of law in which I work change with meteoric speed, what I wrote last week is already out of date. I am constantly updating and rewriting!