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Email

zla20@cam.ac.uk

College Contact Details

Room: F6R

Tel: 01223 361819

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Affiliated Lecturer in Law, Admissions Tutor and Fellow in Law

BA Law, Pembroke College Cambridge; MA Pembroke College, Cambridge; LLM EUI, Florence; PhD, Pembroke College, Cambridge

Interests

Zoe is best-known for her work on Law and Marxism, and for developing radical or critical approaches to the study of the law’s relationship with capitalism. Zoe applies a Marxian inspired lens to study a range of legal topics, but much of her work focuses on labour law and questions of political strategy. The issues she explores include the relationship between law and capitalism, and the role of legal concepts in shaping the latter’s develop; questions of legal form, and their relationship with political strategy; the relationship between law, gender, and race; and, more generally, the role of law in the perpetuation, and legitimisation, of inequality. A lot of her work focuses on UK labour law history, with particular emphasis on the history of wage and working time development; the history of industrial relations and legal frameworks governing trade unions and industrial action; and the law’s role in shaping the so-called ‘future of work’.  

Research centres and interest groups

CV / Biography

 

Zoe Adams is Fellow and Admissions Tutor at King's College Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer in Law at the University of Cambridge, UK. She has a BA from Pembroke College, Cambridge, an LLM from the European University Institute in Florence, and a PhD from Pembroke College Cambridge. She lectures Labour law, Advanced Labour law, and Economics of Law and Regulation. She supervises Labour Law and Tort Law for undergraduates, and is also principal supervisor for a number of PhD students. Zoe is an examiner for the LLM Advanced Labour law course and is also an External Examiner for two courses at the University of Glasgow (undergraduate and LLM).  

 Zoe  was awarded the Yorke Prize for her PhD thesis, A Social Ontology of the Wage, and her first book, Labour and the Wage: A Critical Perspective, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020.  Zoe’s second monograph, The Legal Concept of Work was published in November 2022. She is now in the planning stages of a third book, exploring the relationship between law and power. In addition to this, she is co-author of two textbooks, one on Tort Law, published by Oxford University press, and one on Labour Law, published by Hart; each of which are core practitioners’ texts in their respective fields. Beyond this, Zoe has published a vast number of articles in a range of peer-reviewed journals, including the Industrial Law Journal, the Cambridge Law Journal, the Journal of Law and Political Economy, Historical Materialism (Forthcoming), Cambridge Journal of Economics, and the European Law Journal. She is an Editor for the Cambridge Journal of Economics.  She also regularly contributes book reviews and case notes, and is also regularly consulted as a reviewer for the above noted journals, as well as for academic publishers such as Hart and Cambridge University Press.  

Selected publications

 

Books

Legal Concept of Work (Oxford University Press, 1970)

Labour and the Wage : A Critical Perspective (Oxford University Press, 1970)

Articles

'Marxism, De-Mystification, and the State: the Strategic Link: Review article of The Myth of the Global Market: A Marxist Critique of Neoliberalism (2024) by Giulio Palermo' (2026) Contributions to Political Economy

Citation:
(2026) Contributions to Political Economy

'The Zero Hours Provisions of the Employment Rights Act: Diversionary Tactics' [2026] Industrial Law Journal

Citation:
[2026] Industrial Law Journal
DOI:
10.1093/indlaw/dwag010

'Strategic Implications of Legal Constitution: Between Necessity and Contingency' [2024] ILJ dwae045

Citation:
[2024] ILJ dwae045

'Algorithmic Management: A Radical Approach' (2024) Journal of Law and Political Economy 4.3

Citation:
(2024) Journal of Law and Political Economy 4.3
DOI:
10.5070/LP64364151

'From Prevention to Empowerment: A New Model for UK Labour Law' (2024) Industrial Law Journal dwae015

Citation:
(2024) Industrial Law Journal dwae015
DOI:
10.1093/indlaw/dwae015

'Collective regulation of algorithmic management' (2023) European Law Journal

Co-Author/s:
Johanna Wenckebach
Citation:
(2023) European Law Journal
DOI:
10.1177/20319525231167477

'TRADE UNIONS AND THE LAW: A MATERIALIST PERSPECTIVE' (2023) CLJ 1-28

Citation:
(2023) CLJ 1-28
DOI:
10.1017/S0008197322000927

'Aspirational Work: A UK Labor Law Analysis' (2022) Journal of law and political economy 3.2

Citation:
(2022) Journal of law and political economy 3.2
DOI:
10.5070/LP63259634

'Legal Mobilisations, Trade Unions and Radical Social Change: A Case Study of the IWGB' (2023) Industrial Law Journal

Citation:
(2023) Industrial Law Journal
DOI:
10.1093/indlaw/dwac031

'Invisible labour: legal dimensions of invisibilization' (2022) JLS (49)2, 385-405

Citation:
(2022) JLS (49)2, 385-405

'A structural approach to labour law' (2022) CLJ 46(3), 447-463

Citation:
(2022) CLJ 46(3), 447-463

'Work and works on digital platforms in capitalism: conceptual and regulatory challenges for labour and copyright law' (2020) International Journal of Law and Technology 28(4), 329-370

Co-Author/s:
Henning Grosse Ruse-Kahn
Citation:
(2020) International Journal of Law and Technology 28(4), 329-370

'Labour Law, Capitalism and the Juridical Form: Taking a Critical Approach to Questions of Labour Law Reform' (2021) ILJ 50(3) 434-466

Citation:
(2021) ILJ 50(3) 434-466

Book Chapters

"Work and Power in Digitally Mediated Capitalism: A Marxian-Inspired ‘Societal’ Model of Digital Constitutionalism" in De Gregorio, Pollicino, Valcke (ed(s)), The Oxford Handbook of Digital Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 1970)

"Riley v Warden A Landmark Case?" in Prassl et al. (ed(s)), Landmark Cases in Labour Law (Bloomsbury, 1970)

Publisher: