Dr Joyman Lee
- Lecturer in Common Law (School of Law)
email:
Joyman.Lee@glasgow.ac.uk
School of Law, Room 432, Stair Building, 5-9 The Square, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0617-6827Biography
Joyman joined the Law School in August 2021. His research focuses on comparative and global (Asian & African) trusts, property and legal history.
Joyman plans to develop his doctoral thesis “Structure and Rulemaking in English, Japanese and Quebec Trusts” (UCL 2022) into a monograph. Like in Scotland, trusts in Japan are based on contracts but go further in providing mechanisms for express trusts to perform their role as agreement-based institutions designed to deliver flexibility to property owners. Drawing on the idea of “oxymoronic comparative law”, he argues for the reform of Japanese trust law, where private trusts are becoming more important in light of the ageing society. He contends that civil law systems interested in making an effective use of trusts end up adopting a structure which is similar to English express trusts.
As a former historian, Joyman is also interested in interdisciplinary approaches to law, particularly concerning legal developments in the global South. He is embarking on a project on the legal history of property and development in West Africa, focusing initially on Senegal.
Raised in London, Joyman holds a BA in history from Cambridge and a PhD in history from Yale University (2013). He taught for three years as an assistant professor in the US. He received his GDL from City University and LLM in international commercial law and PhD (2022) in private law from UCL. He also spent a year at Sciences Po in Paris, and has been a visiting scholar at McGill University.
Research interests
Trusts, Property, Comparative Private Law, Legal History, Japanese Law, African Law
Grants
Travel grants to attend the Asian Law Junior Faculty Workshop at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, National University of Singapore, and the Global Scholars Academy at the Institute for Global Law & Policy, Harvard Law School
UCL: Peter Birks Scholarship in Private Law (£54,000 + tuition fees), Master of the Rolls Scholarship for the top applicant from a Commonwealth country (LLM), Pump Court Tax Chambers Prize for the best results in international & commercial trusts law (LLM)
Inner Temple: Major Scholarship (GDL)
History: Yale Graduate School Fellowship & Overbrook History Fellowship, Japan Foundation, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Richard U Light Fellowship (Yale)
Kennedy Scholarship, United Kingdom (declined)
Supervision
Jean Tzu-Yin Chou, “Ethnic politics, local mobility, and medical management in Singapore under British Colonisation and Japanese Occupation"
Teaching
Common law: Equity & Trusts (convenor), Land Law
Scots law: Property (trusts)
Honours courses: Comparative Private Law, Global Trusts & Property
Additional information
As a comparative lawyer/legal historian, Joyman sees languages as a core part of legal research, including in contexts where they do not readily appear in "formal" law. In addition to English, he is proficient in Chinese (Mandarin), Cantonese, Japanese and French. As a part of his work on Senegal, he plans to self-study Wolof.
