Dr Victoria Barnes

Established in 2004 in memory of Adam Podgórecki, the founding father of RCSL, the prize is awarded annually for outstanding achievements in socio-legal research.

This year’s award was announced at the RCSL Annual Meeting in Santiago de Chile. After considering three strong nominations, the prize jury unanimously selected Dr Barnes “in recognition of her outstanding contributions to socio-legal scholarship and her significant impact on the academic community.”

Dr Barnes’s research examines contract, commercial and corporate law through historical, comparative and empirical lenses, with a particular focus on banking, finance and their regulation. She is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Corporate Law Studies and previously edited Business History and the American Journal of Legal History.

Within the RCSL itself, she co-leads the Women and Legal Profession group with Ulrike Schultz. She also founded the Minerva LAW Network, which supports women and early-career researchers in law, as well as the Global Corporate Law Seminar Series.

The Committee said Dr Barnes exemplifies Adam Podgórecki’s legacy through her “intellectual rigour, innovation, and commitment to the development of socio-legal inquiry.”