About
Thesis title
Access to Justice: Reconstruction from a Contextual Approach that Promotes Equality
Supervisors
Dra. Macarena Vargas (UDP) and Professor Nicola Lacey (LSE)
Research interests/areas
Access to Justice, Gender & Law, Human Rights Law, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), Socio-Legal Studies, Judicial Reform, Procedural Law, Latin American Law
Lorena Espinosa is a PhD Candidate in Law at Universidad Diego Portales (UDP, Chile), holding an LL.M. in Human Rights Law (with distinction) from University College London (UCL). She is currently a Visiting Research Student in Law at LSE.
Her research interests focus on access to justice, with a particular emphasis on People-Centred Justice, critical legal theory, gender justice, and judicial reform in Latin America. Her thesis aims to reconstruct the right to access to justice by analysing the characteristics, contexts, and specific needs of individuals and groups facing systemic barriers. It seeks to develop a new conceptual framework grounded in critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, and Nancy Fraser’s theory of justice.
Prior to joining LSE, Lorena served as Director of Studies and Training at the Justice Studies Centre of the Americas (JSCA) -an international organisation of the Inter-American System created in 1999 by resolution of the OAS General Assembly-, where she oversaw research and training programs focused on improving the justice systems in Latin America. She previously served as a Legal Advisor to the Coordinator of the Committee on Fundamental Rights of the Chilean Constitutional Convention. During her tenure as a Research Lawyer at JSCA (2015-2020), she coordinated the institution's Gender Equality Policy and authored comparative studies on civil justice reforms and access to justice.
At UDP, she has held several academic positions, including Adjunct Researcher in the Procedural Reform and Litigation Program, Lecturer in Procedural Law, Legal Reasoning, and Gender and Justice, and Coordinator of the Procedural Law Research Group. She is the author of several publications in the areas of procedural law, access to justice, and gender.
Affiliations / Memberships
Red de Investigadores de Derecho Procesal
Awards / Scholarships
National Doctorate Scholarship - Doctoral Internships Abroad, Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo de Chile (ANID)
National Doctorate Scholarship, Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo de Chile (ANID)
Awarded Distinction in LL.M. Human Rights Law, University College London
LLM Scholarship Abroad, Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo de Chile (ANID)