Rate My Professor Tania Sourdin

Emeritus Professor Tania Sourdin holds the position of Emeritus Professor in the School of Law and Justice, College of Human and Social Futures, at the University of Newcastle, appointed in late 2024. Prior to this, she was Dean and Head of the School until 2023 and served as President of the Academic Senate until the end of 2024. Her academic credentials comprise a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Laws from the University of New South Wales, a Master of Laws from the University of Technology Sydney, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the same institution. Throughout her career, Professor Sourdin has worked as a consultant and specialist expert in complex justice sector programs worldwide, influencing legislative reforms, standards, and cultural changes in technological reform, justice, and dispute resolution.

Her research focuses on justice innovation, technology including artificial intelligence, ethics in litigation, conflict avoidance, dispute resolution, and judicial system innovations, with particular attention to ethical and practical issues in AI governance, access to justice, and complaints handling. She has taught judges in programs covering technology use, court craft, civil procedure, decision-making, complex behaviour, and judicial orientation, and led justice innovation projects demonstrating significant impacts, such as research indicating up to a $5 return per dollar invested in complaints handling. Professor Sourdin has authored key books including 'Legal Aspects of Autonomous Systems' (2024), 'Judges, Technology and Artificial Intelligence: The Artificial Judge' (2021), 'Digital Technology and Justice: Justice Apps' (2020), and multiple editions of 'Alternative Dispute Resolution' from 2002 to 2020. Among her over 125 journal articles are 'Judge v Robot: Artificial Intelligence and Judicial Decision-Making' (2020) and 'The Privilege and the Pressure: Judges' and Magistrates' Reflections on the Sources and Impacts of Stress in Judicial Work' (2024). She contributes to national and international boards, committees, and working groups, and collaborates on First Nations-led research into informal justice and peacebuilding.