Professor James Lee : ''Pure Imagination: Stories, Institutions and Law Reform''

The Dickson Poon School of Law is proud to present our Inaugural Lecture Series. Inaugural Lectures are a celebration of our Professors, as they present an overview of their contribution to their field, as well as highlight its latest developments. The lecture is open to both members of the university community and the wider public, and is followed by a reception in the Great Hall.

''Pure Imagination: Stories, Institutions and Law Reform''

Now here’s a story. It’s about a late Georgian billionaire, whose assets were strewn and hidden across multiple jurisdictions. His family want to recover those assets. Various characters agree to help them. Companies are created and then there are secret business deals. People fall out, and try to turn situations to their own advantage. There is even a moral at the end. This intriguing tale could be the plot of a movie, but these are actually the facts of a recent UK Supreme Court decision, in Rukhadze v Recovery Partners GP Ltd [2025] UKSC 10.

In this lecture, I shall examine the role of narrative in creating and curating institutions, and in effecting and affecting legal change. A key claim is that the narratives told by institutions (and the individuals who serve in them) make a difference, as do the narratives which we tell about them. This point has consequences for how we understand the work of the courts in developing the law, and law reform agencies in proposing change. I explore these themes through critical examination of Recovery Partners, our case on fiduciaries and causation.

I shall show how in Recovery Partners, the Justices deploy different narratives to examine the relevance of what did happen on the facts and of what could have happened had the defendants behaved differently. Across four contrasting judgments, the Justices reach the same ultimate conclusion but for various reasons and with some significant disagreements along the way. The Court also forcefully declined an invitation to depart from previous authorities. There are different stories told about what the law is, and what it should be, and how the courts can bring about change in the law. A connected, concluding claim is then that understanding the role of narrative is important for a wider and deeper appreciation of the common law imagination.

Speaker Biography:

James Lee is Professor of English Law at King’s College London, where he has taught a range of private law subjects. His research has explored interconnected themes in private law, law reform and judicial decision-making, with a particular focus on the UK Supreme Court and the Law Commission of England & Wales. With Jamie Glister, James is co-author of the best-selling Trusts textbook, Hanbury and Martin: Modern Equity, the latest, 23rd edition of which was published in 2024. In recent years, his work has been cited by courts in England, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia. He regularly lectures on tort for the judiciary in England & Wales. James is one of the General Editors of Legal Studies, the flagship journal of the Society of Legal Scholars.

He is an Academic Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. and an academic member of the Property Litigation Association, Chancery Bar Association (ChBA) and the Property Bar Association (PBA). He serves on the Education and Training Committee for the Inner Temple, as Vice-Chair of the ChBA Academic Liaison Sub-Committee, and as Chair of the PBA’s Law Reform Sub-Committee. He is also a member of the International Advisory Panel for the Junior Lawyers Professional Certification Programme of the Singapore Academy of Law.

Having studied as an undergraduate and postgraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, James taught at the Universities of Reading and Birmingham. During his career, James has held visiting research positions at several institutions, including as Professor Sir Neil MacCormick Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (2014); Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales (2018); Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford (2022); Beaufort Visiting Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (2023); Lee Kong Chian Visiting Professor at Singapore Management University (2022/23); and Judge Ian Borrin Visiting Fellow, Victoria University of Wellington (2024). He has been a Visiting Professor in Contract Law at the Católica Global School of Law, Universidade Católica Portuguesa (2016), a Visiting Professor in Equity & Trusts at Hong Kong University (2018), and is currently a Senior Fellow on the Melbourne Law Masters at Melbourne Law School.

James is founding Co-Editor (with Erin Delaney and Andrew Lynch) of the book series Hart Studies on Judging and the Courts. He acts as an Independent Academic Governor of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.