Francine Ryan

Francine is a qualified solicitor, Senior Lecturer in Law and Director of the Open Justice Centre at The Open University. As the Director of the Open Justice Centre, Francine has worked to develop a range of innovative and technology enhanced opportunities for OU law students. She leads the Open Justice Legal Tech project, the Open Justice University, Law School, was the first university in the UK to use legal automation platform, Josef to educate law students. Francine is working with colleagues on a Virtual Reality Courtroom project which will support both teaching and learning and knowledge exchange. Francine has written OU teaching materials on pro bono, social justice, access to justice and technology and professional and practice skills. Francine was a finalist in The Law Teacher of the Year 2020 . She is also a co-author of Digital Lawyering that is published by Taylor & Francis.

Francine’s research interests are legal education in particularly technology enhanced learning. The Open Justice Centre has been the object of considerable interest from scholars of legal education, given its innovative approach to combining experiential learning with cutting edge legal technologies. Her research explores the skills, attributes and capabilities law graduates require to transition into the future world of work. Francine is interested in the intersection between law and technology and particularly the impact of Gen AI on access to justice.