Conor McCormick

Conor specialises in constitutional and administrative law, with a distinctive focus on the law and legal history of Northern Ireland. His research examines how public law is developed and applied through courts, executive bodies and the legislative process. He also works extensively on law officers like the Attorney General, with his research in this area receiving particularly diffuse international recognition. He uses doctrinal, socio-legal and historical research methods which include interviews with judges, lawyers and officials, as well as quantitative and archival analyses. He has published numerous peer-reviewed monographs, edited collections, journal articles, book chapters and commissioned reports, and his work is widely used by parliamentary bodies, law officers, judges and others involved in the practice of public law.

Conor has taught and coordinated a broad range of subjects, including clinical, criminal, constitutional and administrative law, and he supervises doctoral research in public law and legal history. As Director of Graduate Studies for the School of Law he led a package of reforms to postgraduate degree programmes, co-curricular activities and student support measures which contributed to sustained growth in postgraduate enrolments and continuous improvement in student satisfaction survey results.

Conor graduated with an LL.B in Law (First Class Honours) from Queen’s University Belfast before completing an LL.M in Clinical Legal Education with Distinction at Ulster University. He returned to Queen’s for his doctoral studies, where he was awarded a Ph.D in Law without corrections. He later completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching at Queen’s with Distinction. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, now known as Advance HE. He also serves on several professional organisations responsible for matters of strategic importance to legal scholars, educators and practitioners, including the Council of Legal Education for Northern Ireland.