Biography
Professor Tania Sourdin PhD, LLM, BA, LLB
Professor Tania Sourdin is the Dean of the University of Newcastle Law School.
In the past two decades, she has conducted qualitative and quantitative research projects into aspects of the dispute resolution and justice system systems in 12 Courts and Tribunals and six external dispute resolution schemes within Australia. Other research has focussed on therapeutic justices, restorative justice, justice innovation, technology, delay and systemic reforms. In 2003 and 2005 she was the Chief Investigator on two Australian Research Council projects that explored the use of artificial intelligence in the legal domain. Since that time she has had a number of projects that have explored the use of AI in the justice system and the role of a human judge in terms of court engagement and collaboration.
Recently, Professor Sourdin completed the 6th edition of her book “Alternative Dispute Resolution” (Thomson Reuters) and has focussed on Judges and AI and has published papers such as “Judge v Robot” (2018), chapters that include “Must a Judge be Human?”(2018) and books – “The Responsive Judge” (Springer, 2018), “The Multi Tasking Judge” (Thomson Reuters, 2012). She recently completed a short co authored book on “Digital Technology and Justice : Justice Apps” (Routledge, 2020) and her book “Judges, Technology and AI” was published 2021 ( Edward Elgar).
Professor Sourdin is the author of a number of more than 140 publications that are focussed on justice reform issues and has published and presented widely on a range of topics including ADR, justice innovation, justice issues, mediation, conflict resolution, collaborative law, artificial intelligence, technology and organisational change. She has also retained a part time practice focus and has worked for more than 30 years as a lawyer, 25 years in various senior part time tribunal positions and as a mediator and has since 2014 been the National Broadband Network (a $40 Billion plus project) industry dispute resolution advisor within Australia.