Professor Luke Mason

Professor Luke Mason is a lawyer, philosopher and legal scholar whose work focuses on the philosophy of law, technological innovation, labour law and legal education. He is an experienced leader and innovator in the fields of law and education, and has served as Head of several large University Law Schools and other organisations. He works across law, governance, technology, education and broader areas of innovation and business.

Luke’s research and innovation work cover a broad range of fields, often focusing on the relationship between technological innovation and the role and evolution of law. His primary legal expertise lies in employment law and social policy, in particular the legal construction and regulation of employment relationships and emerging forms of work. More broadly, his work looks at the nature and structure of legal thought and practice and the law’s complex relationship with technological innovative and disruption. Much of his current work focuses on how technological innovation, in particular machine learning, generative AI and automated normative systems, are disrupting and changing the nature and role of legal knowledge in radical ways and how practice, education, governance and policy should change to reflect this.

Luke’s work is inherently interdisciplinary, and engages with questions of economics, philosophy, epistemology, ethics, technology and public policy. He has worked on numerous large funded international research projects, notably on new forms of work, algorithmic management, the gig economy and the future of work. He has also worked extensively within policy and within business in a number of countries. Luke has collaborated extensively with artists and other creatives on various projects to bring his ideas and perspectives to broader audiences, with several of the projects receiving funding from arts councils and other benefactors to promote and share this work. He has co-produced films, gallery exhibitions, performances and public philosophy events in numerous countries.

Luke has a sustained track record of innovation and success in legal education. In 2014 he won the national Law Teacher of the Year Prize, and has won several other prizes for his contribution to teaching and legal education. Prior to joining Regent’s as the inaugural Head of the School of Law, he served as Head of several large University Law Schools in the UK. In the past he has served as Chair of the Association of Law Teachers and Director of Education and Training for Birmingham Law Society, and he has a high profile within legal education and training circles in the UK and internationally, contribution to policy developments, research and innovation more broadly. He has overseen the development of numerous legal and interdisciplinary degree programmes, both undergraduate and postgraduate, as well as programmes across different countries

Luke has held teaching and research roles at various institutions in numerous countries, including, in the UK, Westminster, Surrey, Birmingham City University, St Mary’s and Oxford, and, internationally the Sorbonne Law School (Paris I), the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, the Catholic University of Paris, EM Normandie Business School, the EUI, and the University of Bordeaux, where he was Invited Professor of Comparative Labour Law at the COMPTRASEC research centre (CNRS). He has co-founded several research centres and scientific journals, and serves on the editorial board of a number of law journals. He continues to supervise a number of doctoral projects within employment law, law and technology, legal theory and legal education.

Forthcoming - (2026) Disruptive Technology and the Marginalisation of Law’s Epistemic Core: From law as modal justification to law as design

Forthcoming - (2026) Deep epistemic unity and the fractal legal form (under review at Law and Critique journal)

Forthcoming - (2026) The Changing Modalities of Legal Education and Training in the Shadow of the Emerging Modalities of Legal Tech and AI (Book Chapter)

(2022) Labour law without labour law: The United Kingdom’s labour market response to COVID-19. Russian Journal of Labour and Law (12) 54-62.

(2022) (with M Goetzmann and E Frezet (eds)) Spaces of Law and Custom (Routledge)

(2021) 英 国 In: 平台经济与劳动立法国际趋势 (The Platform Economy and International Trends in Labour Legislation). 中国工人出版社 (China Workers Publishing House), pp. 182-201.

(2020) Locating Unity in the Fragmented Platform Economy: Labour law and the Platform Economy in the United Kingdom, Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal (2)

(2019) (with A Condello) Make it new! The redeeming Modernism of law and the collapsing of its polarities. Polemos, 13 (1)

(2019) Idealism, Empiricism, Pluralism, Law: Legal truth after modernity. In: Condello, Angela and Andina, Tiziana, (eds.) Post-Truth, Law and Philosophy. Routledge

(2019) The vanishing employment relationship in the European Social Constitution in Toracca (ed), I work therefore I am, Routledge 2019)

(2019) ‘L’auto-image du juge, et le recul du juge dans le droit du travail’, Revue du Droit Comparé du Travail

(2019) The Art of Equity/The Equity of Art: The History and Future of a Malleable Concept in Vermeir and Heiremans (eds) A Modest Proposal (Jubilee, Brussels)

(2019) Il pluralismo giuridico e la crime fiction italiana: Le forme letterarie come opere di filosofia del diritto, l’autore come giuslavorista. In: Le vie del lavoro nella cultura italiana contemporanea: Rappresentazione del mondo del lavoro dagli anni Ottanta a oggi. Franco Cesati

(2019) Le barème des indemnités de licenciement en droit anglais : entre les contraintes législatives et la créativité de la Common Law, (2019) Revue du droit du travail

(2019) United Kingdom/Royaume-Uni : Labour Law and the Platform Economy. Report to ETUC Committee (ETUI)

(2018) A Modest Proposal (Film and full gallery art exhibition)

(2018) (with J Guth) Reclaiming our discipline. Law Teacher, 52 (4)

(2018) SQEezing the jurisprudence out of the SRA’s Super Exam: The SQE’s Bleak Legal Realism and the rejection of law’s multimodal truth. The Law Teacher, 52 (4)

(2018) Brexit, the end of history and the Constitution of Social Europe: critical reflections on the Social Pillar and its limits. Lex Social, 8 (2)

(2018) Law in Kinchin and Winstone, Exploring Pedagogic Frailty and Resilience. Brill

(2018) Le salarié-actionnaire en droit anglais : l’histoire d’un échec législatif. In Mazyuère (ed), La place des salariés dans l’entreprise. Mare&Martin

(2017) Labour rights. MPECCL, OUP

(2016) Competing mythologies of law in common law and civil law: the self-image of law in literature (short piece in collection – non peer-reviewed)

(2016) Legal Services and Artificial Intelligence (special issue) Modern Law 3

(2015) Les contrats à zéro heure et l'exception anglaise, Bulletin du COMPTRASEC 2

(2014) The intractably unknowable nature of law : Kadi, Kafka, and the law's competing claims to authority. In: Avbelj et al (eds), Kadi on Trial: A Multifaceted Analysis of the Kadi Trial. Routledge

(2013) Labour law, the Industrial Constitution and the EU's accession to the ECHR. In: Dzehtsiarou et al (eds), Human Rights Law in Europe. Routledge

• Jurisprudence and the philosophy of law
• Law and emerging technologies
• Machine Learning and Legal Technology
• Employment Law
• Labour Market Regulation
• Economic and Social Constitutionalism
• Legal Education