Simone Degeling

Associate Professor

BCom (with Merit) LLB UNSW., LLM (with Merit) UCL., DPhil Oxon.,
Co-Director Private Law Research & Policy Group

Contact details

Room:

214 Law Building

Phone:

9385 3943

E-mail:

simone.degeling@unsw.edu.au

View publications

Brief overview

My research is about private law and its internal structures and architecture. My research is premised on the view that private law should be transparent and rational. Law should offer an acceptable degree of predictability of outcome and those who apply it should be accountable in part by the giving of defensible reasons. The development of a taxonomy by which we can understand private law assists in achieving and maintaining these objectives. It is therefore necessary to have a view of private law as an integrated whole rather than simply as a collection of discrete and sometimes merely contextual categories.

My particular expertise lies in the law of unjust enrichment, the law of equity and the law of remedies. Within unjust enrichment scholarship, I have done extensive work on policy motivated unjust factors and the intersections between unjust enrichment and tort. I use both doctrinal and theoretical approaches to inform my work.

Research topic

I am currently working on various research projects including:
1. Collective or group claims in unjust enrichment (with J Seymour, University of Cambridge);
2. Undue influence and unjust enrichment;
3. Feminist approaches to valuing care in private law (with M San Roque, UNSW);

Courses taught

Areas of expertise

Law of Unjust Enrichment & Restitution, Commercial law,  Equity and Trusts, Remedies,  Banking Law,  Private Law Theory

Professional memberships and affiliations

Journal of Equity, Editor

Society of Legal Scholars

Research supervision

Scott Donald 'Role of trust law in superannuation' (with Dimity Kingsford-Smith)

Grants

UNSW Faculty Research Grant "Australian Unjust Enrichment Law"

Australian Research Council (2010) with Prof Graham W Greenleaf, Prof Carolyn Sappideen, Prof Andrew S Mowbray, Prof Michael D Coper, Dr David Rolph, Mr John E Selby, Ms Patricia J Blazey "Free access legal research infrastructure for the whole of the common law: Completing CommonLII".