Simon Lavis
Contact Details
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Room: A37, Law and Social Sciences Building
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E-mail: Simon Lavis
Probing the Margins of Legal Theory: An Exploration into Law’s Responses to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
I am interested in the historical and contemporary implications of the period of National Socialist rule in Germany, as well as the way in which legal and historical knowledge and meaning are constructed. My research explores how legal scholars, and those from related disciplines, write about the Nazi past and the impact this has on the way in which this period is perceived and understood as having legal and historical significance.
It is tempting to treat the Nazi legal system as the Other from the perspective of the legal values embodied by a twenty-first century democratic state, and this view is prevalent within contemporary academic legal discourse. Similarly, the events comprising the Holocaust continue to be seen as the epitome of the extreme, starkly in opposition to the normality of everyday society. This research aims to investigate these positions further, in order to understand their theoretical foundations. By analysing the complex nature of human existence in the camps, the perpetrator-victim dichotomy, and continuities with the Nazi legal system, for example, my thesis counters the theoretical assumptions that lead to the exclusion of the Nazi experience in the construction of legal knowledge.
This research also examines and develops encounters between law and other disciplines, history in particular, in writing about Nazi Germany, in order to trace parallel approaches between these subject-areas and make further connections. It is hoped this research will encourage an approach to the experience of Nazi law as something among rather than apart from us, which consequently can contribute to our understanding both of the history of Nazism and the way in which law functions within society.
Research Supervisors
Professor David Fraser and Professor Noel Whitty
Primary Funding Source
Arts & Humanities Research Council Studentship
Academic Qualifications
Academic Qualification
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Awarding Institution
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BA (Hons) History
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University of Sheffield
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MA Historical Research
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University of Sheffield
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LLB (Hons) Law
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The College of Law, Guildford
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LLM (General)
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University of Birmingham
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‘Probing the Margins of Legal Theory: An Exploration into Law’s Responses to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust’, Poster Presentation, Queen Mary PhD Conference: Pushing Legal Knowledge Boundaries, Queen Mary, University of London, 7 June 2011.
Brief Career History
From 2007 to 2009 Simon trained as a solicitor at the London office of DLA Piper UK LLP. He worked in various departments on corporate and commercial matters, acting for private and public sector clients. While undertaking his LLM Simon worked part time as a solicitor in the Commercial Litigation team in the Birmingham Office of DLA Piper. He worked primarily on invoice financing dispute resolution for large banking clients.
Other Information
Solicitor (Non-Practicing)
Teaches Public Law A & B courses to first year undergraduates
Simon’s LLM degree encompassed areas of legal and criminal theory, and public international and international criminal law.
Future Plans
Following completion of his PhD, Simon hopes to become an academic, exploring further research in legal theory and legal history.