Director, University of Otago Legal Issues Centre
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law
Tel:(+64) 21 279 0488
Email: bridgette.toy-cronin@otago.ac.nz
Twitter: @ToyCronin
Blog: www.civiljusticewatch.blog
Research Interests
Bridgette’s research has an empirical focus, furthering the Centre’s aims of investigating access to justice, the legal profession, judging, dispute resolution and civil procedure. Bridgette is interested in socio-legal research methods, as well as studying the intersection of civil justice and poverty. Bridgette has been the Director of the Legal Issues Centre since 2016.
Background
Originally from Whakatāne, Bridgette moved to the big smoke and Auckland University where she completed her undergraduate education in law and politics. She travelled New Zealand and the world gathering experience as an intern at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a High Court Judges' Clerk in Wellington, a legal advisor at the Cambodian Defenders Project on Women's Rights in Phnom Penh and a commercial litigator in New Zealand and Australia. She also completed further study, and was awarded an LLM from Harvard Law School in 2005 and a PhD from the University of Otago in 2015.
Research Projects
- Aotearoa's Future Courts
- Terminating Tenancies
- Mapping Legal Services
- The Wheels of Justice: Understanding the Pace of Civil High Court Cases
- Litigants in Person
Other Research Networks
- Vice President of the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand
- New Zealand Bar Association Access to Justice Working Group
- Innovations in Judging, Collaborative Research Network, Law and Society Association
- Realist and Empirical Legal Methods, Collaborative Research Network, Law and Society Association
- Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, admitted 2002
- Barrister and Solicitor of Victoria and the High Court of Australia, admitted 2009
Publications
Tkacukova, T., Gee, M., Toy-Cronin, B., & Irvine, B. (2019). Corpus linguistics as a methodological tool for socio-legal studies. Socio Legal Studies Association (SLSA) Annual Converence. Retrieved from https://slsa2019.com
Toy-Cronin, B. (2018). Ethical issues in insider-outsider research. In R. Iphofen & M. Tolich (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research ethics. (pp. 455-469). London, UK: SAGE.
Toy-Cronin, B., Irvine, B., Nichols, D., Cunningham, S. J., & Tkacukova, T. (2018). Testing the promise of access to justice through online courts. International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution, 5(1-2), 39-48.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2018). Beyond “doing a few interviews”. New Zealand Law Journal, (November), 325-329.
Toy-Cronin, B., & Adams, J. (2018). Courthouses, ceremony and the legal profession: A case study on Dunedin's court re-opening. Proceedings of the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ), the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA) and the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) of the UK Joint International Conference: Inclusion, Exclusion, Democracy. (pp. 21). Retrieved from http://www.uowblogs.com/lsaanz2018
Working Paper; Discussion Paper; Technical Report
Toy-Cronin, B., Irvine, B., Stewart, K., & Henaghan, M. (2017). The wheels of justice: Understanding the pace of civil high court cases. Dunedin, New Zealand: Legal Issues Centre, University of Otago. 131p. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10523/7762
Toy-Cronin, B., Billington, J., Smith, M., & Dixit, K. (2016). New business models for legal services. Dunedin, New Zealand: Legal Issues Centre, University of Otago. 15p. Retrieved from http://www.otago.ac.nz/legal-issues/publications/index.html
Other Research Output
Pender, N. & Toy-Cronin, B. (2017, July). Practitioners and self-represented litigants. NZLS CLE, Wellington, New Zealand. [Webinar].
Chapter in Book - Research
Toy-Cronin, B. (2018). Ethical issues in insider-outsider research. In R. Iphofen & M. Tolich (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research ethics. (pp. 455-469). London, UK: SAGE.
Toy-Cronin, B., & Byrne, K. (2017). Medical legal aspects of regional anesthesia: Legal perspective. In B. T. Finucane & B. T. H. Tsui (Eds.), Complications of regional anesthesia: Principles of safe practice in local and regional anesthesia. (3rd ed.) (pp. 483-488). Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-49386-2_35
Journal - Research Article
Toy-Cronin, B., Irvine, B., Nichols, D., Cunningham, S. J., & Tkacukova, T. (2018). Testing the promise of access to justice through online courts. International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution, 5(1-2), 39-48.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2018). Beyond “doing a few interviews”. New Zealand Law Journal, (November), 325-329.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2017). Feminist judgments of Aotearoa New Zealand Te Rino: A two-stranded rope. New Zealand Women's Law Journal, 1, 192-199.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2017). A defence of the right to litigate in person. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 37(1), 238-254. doi: 10.1093/ojls/gqw027
Toy-Cronin, B. (2017). From litigator to researcher: The burdens and benefits of moving between the profession and the academy. International Journal of the Legal Profession, 24(3), 341-358. doi: 10.1080/09695958.2016.1228532
Toy-Cronin, B. (2016). Counsel's tables? Seating counsel and litigants-in-person in the courtroom. New Zealand Law Journal, 4, 148-151.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2016). I ain't no fool: Deciding to litigate in person in the civil courts. New Zealand Law Review, 4, 723-754.
Toy-Cronin, B. A. (2010). What is forced marriage: Towards a definition of forced marriage as a crime against humanity. Columbia Journal of Gender & Law, 19(2), 539-590.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2002). Waiver of the rule against bias. Te Mata Koi Auckland University Law Review, 9(3), 850-882.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Toy-Cronin, B. (2016). Just an hour of your time? Providing limited (unbundled) assistance to litigants in person. LawTalk, 884, 20-23.
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Full paper
Toy-Cronin, B. (2015). Searching for a legal oasis: Legal service provision and the "justice gap". Proceedings of the Family Law Conference. (pp. 411-418). Wellington, NZ: NZLS CLE. [Full Paper]
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Tkacukova, T., Gee, M., Toy-Cronin, B., & Irvine, B. (2019). Corpus linguistics as a methodological tool for socio-legal studies. Socio Legal Studies Association (SLSA) Annual Converence. Retrieved from https://slsa2019.com
Toy-Cronin, B., & Adams, J. (2018). Courthouses, ceremony and the legal profession: A case study on Dunedin's court re-opening. Proceedings of the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ), the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA) and the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) of the UK Joint International Conference: Inclusion, Exclusion, Democracy. (pp. 21). Retrieved from http://www.uowblogs.com/lsaanz2018
Toy-Cronin, B. (2015). A limited welcome: Methods and motives for communicating outsider status to litigants in person. Proceedings of the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ): Inside Out. (pp. 49-50). Retrieved from http://www.aomevents.com/LSAANZ2015
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Toy-Cronin, B., & Irvine, B. (2017, December). Accurate explanation of a dispute in an online court: A study design. Verbal presentation at the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ) Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2016, June). Obsessed about obsessives? The challenge of persistent litigants. Verbal presentation at the Law and Society Association (LSA) Annual Meeting: At the Delta: Belonging, Place and Visions of Law and Social Change, New Orleans, USA.
Toy-Cronin, B. (2013, November). Insights from self-represented litigants: Perceptions of opposing counsel conduct: Rules and realities. Verbal presentation at the Australia and New Zealand Legal Ethics Colloquium (ANZLEC) 4: Challenging Professional Boundaries, Adelaide, Australia.
Awarded Doctoral Degree
Toy-Cronin, B. A. (2015). Keeping up appearances: Accessing New Zealand's civil courts as a litigant in person (PhD). University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10523/6003
