Dr Findlay Stark

Findlay Stark graduated from the Universities of Aberdeen (LLB (Hons), LLM by Research) and Edinburgh (PhD), before joining the Faculty of Law in 2012 as a Temporary Lecturer in Criminal Law. He was then the inaugural Yates Glazebrook Fellow and College Lecturer in Law at Jesus College, Cambridge (2012-2015), and a Fixed-Term Lecturer in Criminal Law at the Faculty (2014-2015). Findlay was appointed as a University Lecturer in the Faculty in 2015 and was promoted to University Senior Lecturer in 2018. His title was converted to Associate Professor (Grade 10) in 2021.

From 2016-2018, Findlay served as Academic Secretary of the Faculty – one of three ‘Officers’ responsible for the day-to-day running of the Faculty – and from October 2022 he will serve as Chair of the Degree Committee (which oversees matters related to the admission and progress of PhD students). He has also been a co-Deputy Director of the Cambridge Centre for Criminal Justice since its inception in 2016, and will become a co-Director of the Centre in October 2022.

Findlay’s research focuses on criminal law, evidence, and procedure, often with reference to work in moral, legal and political philosophy. He is also interested in legal philosophy (legal theory, jurisprudence) more generally.

A list of Findlay’s most significant publications is to be found below. Much of Findlay’s research to date has focussed on mens rea – the fault element in crime – and particularly recklessness and negligence. His 2016 monograph, Culpable Carelessness: Recklessness and Negligence in the Criminal Law was published by Cambridge University Press. It was reviewed by Dr Andrew Cornford (Edinburgh) in the Criminal Law Review, Professor Kimberly Kessler Ferzan (Virginia) in the Modern Law Review, Professor Jonathan Herring (Oxford) in the Law Quarterly Review, and Professor Alexander Sarch (Surrey) in Criminal Law and Philosophy. His research has also appeared in leading journals including the Cambridge Law Journal, Criminal Law and Philosophy, the Modern Law Review, and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, as well as in edited collections of essays published by leading legal publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Hart, and Oxford University Press.

Together with Professors Simester, Spencer, Sullivan and Virgo, Findlay was an author/editor of the sixth (2016) and seventh (2019) editions of Simester and Sullivan’s Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine – an advanced textbook on criminal law published by Hart. An eighth edition, co-author/edited with Professors Child, Simester, Spencer, and Virgo, will be published by Hart in September 2022.

Findlay was a Note Editor (2015-2019) and a General Editor (2019-2020) of the Cambridge Law Journal, and serves on the editorial committees of Criminal Law Forum (2019-) and the Criminal Law Review (2017-).

Findlay is interested in comparative criminal law theory, and has been part of the Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice project, headed by Professor Kai Ambos at Göttingen, since its inception. He is a member of the organising committee of the project’s Virtual Comparative Criminal Law seminar, headed by Professor Alec Walen at Rutgers, and welcomes expressions of interest from persons interested in talking at a future seminar.

Findlay is committed to engagement with practitioners, and achieving ‘impact’. In 2014-2015, he served as a member of the Academic Expert Group that assisted the Post-Corroboration Safeguards Review (commissioned by the Scottish Government, and chaired by Lord Bonomy). He was one of the founders of the popular Assize seminars on criminal law. He has given a variety of talks to practitioners, including a Criminal Bar Association update lecture. Findlay was an Academic Door Tenant, and is now an Academic Associate, at 23 Essex Street, a leading criminal law set. Findlay’s research has been cited by the New Zealand Supreme Court (the mens rea of attempts) and the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (the history of complicity liability), and in successive editions of the Scottish Jury Manual (breach of the peace).

Findlay welcomes inquiries regarding potential research supervision in the fields of criminal law (theory and doctrine), procedure and evidence. His current research supervisees are Khomotso Moshikaro, Sara Trainor, and Forest Yu, and he is Advisor to Jeanne-Rose Arn, Harry Harland, and Giordana Campagna.

Findlay’s Twitter handle is @FGFStark.