Dr Paulina E. Wilson is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, Le Centre International de Recherches et études Transdisciplinaires (CIRET), the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the British Association of Comparative Law (BACL), and BACL representative at Queen’s University Belfast.

Dr Wilson was appointed Deputy Director of Education in 2021, coordinating the LLB (Single Honours) Programme, acting as an Advisor of Studies, recruiting, training, and managing Teaching Assistants involved in core module delivery, and contributing to the development of teaching policies. She has also acted as a Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences representative on the 2030 Education Strategy Student Voice Working Group, member of the External Examiners Project Implementation Group, and contributor to the University-wide Welcome Week Review in 2023-24.

Dr Wilson is a comparative lawyer researching linguistic aspects of substantive law and the legal process, including interjurisdictional law practice/communication and statutory/judicial interpretation of legal concepts. More specifically, her interdisciplinary research focusses on conceptual micro-comparisons in the areas of tort and criminal law, and the impact of interjurisdictional law variation on global law practice, including judicial cooperation, foreign law as evidence, and both professional and legal-lay communication. Dr Wilson’s paper entitled ‘Comparative law outside the ivory tower: an interdisciplinary perspective’ was shortlisted for the Best Paper Prize following the Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference 2020 and subsequently published in Legal Studies. Dr Wilson’s recent publications explore transdisciplinarity in law practice and legal education, drawing on insights from comparative law, linguistics, second language acquisition and translation, as well as over two decades of her professional experience gained outside academia. Dr Wilson’s current research focusses on professional negligence (standard of care) in the absence of occupational regulation, and conceptual variation in negligence claims, with insights from road traffic, railway, aviation and maritime laws.

Dr Wilson has delivered keynotes at specialist international conferences, including—most recently—the 4^th Comparative and International Law Conference at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies in June 2024, the International Conference on Comparative Law, organised by the School of Law, Galgotias University, India, and the School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Australia, in collaboration with the International Association of Law Schools and Council of Australian Law Deans, in April 2025, and the 75^th Anniversary BACL Workshop, held at the University of Cambridge in July 2025.

Dr Wilson has been Primary Investigator on a number of research projects, including ‘Comparative Law Challenges in Cross-Border/Multilingual Law Practice’, funded by two ESRC Impact Acceleration grants in 2022 and 2023, and ‘Averting Negligence through Regulation: Professionalisation of Language Services Provision’ (with Dr Chen-En Ho as co-investigator), funded by the Crucible Pump-Priming Fund in 2025, leading teams of six and seven research assistants, respectively.

Committed to enhancing legal and judicial practice through applied interdisciplinary research, Dr Wilson provides training to practitioners and stakeholders in the legal process. On the request of the Judicial Studies Board for Northern Ireland, Dr Wilson delivered training on Judicial Writing and Communication to members of the judiciary across all tiers in January 2025, and she is also involved in the work of the Northern Ireland Judicial College.

Dr Wilson is Archives Editor for the Northern Ireland Law Quarterly, where she is currently leading a Reflections on Teaching series. She is also an editor of the British Association of Comparative Law blog, an editorial board member of the Juridical Tribune and a member of the Scientific Committee in the Society of Juridical and Administrative Sciences. Dr Wilson has reviewed textbooks and book proposals for the Oxford University Press, Hart Publishing/Bloomsbury Academic, Edward Elgar Publishing and Bristol University Press, and peer-reviewed for academic journals, including Northern Ireland Law Quarterly, and the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology.

Dr Wilson’s teaching is primarily in the areas of Tort Law, and Legal Methods and Skills, which she has taught and/or convened on LLB, MLaw and JD programmes. Previously, Dr Wilson also taught Criminal Law and convened Research Methodologies, Professional Ethics and Design, and Intellectual Property Law modules. Dr Wilson is a guest lecturer at the School of Arts, English and Languages, where she delivers an annual Law and Language lecture series on Master’s in Translation and Master’s in Interpreting programmes.

Commissioned as a Tort Law expert by the Oxford University Press, Dr Wilson has made an extensive online resource contribution to a leading textbook, Tort Law by Kirsty Horsey and Erika Rackley (OUP 2025).

Dr Wilson brings to her research and teaching a unique blend of interdisciplinary and comparative law insight and expertise, and both professional and academic experience of over two decades.  Dr Wilson holds a Master of Arts degree in English Language and Literature, a Master of Legal Science degree, and a PhD in Comparative Law/Legal Translation. Prior to joining the School of Law, she gained extensive experience in teaching, assessment, and dissertation supervision in the further and higher education sector, including teaching Linguistics and coordinating a Phonetics module on TESOL, and Speech and Language Therapy programmes at Ulster University. Drawing on her linguistic background, Dr Wilson’s teaching and research aim to inform and enhance law practice in a global context.

Dr Wilson provides consultancy and expert witness services, predominantly in the area of tort law/negligence and global legal practice. She has been approached in her advisory capacity by, among others, the Department of Justice and Aviation Law attorneys from San Francisco.