Frances Hand

Frances Hand is a DPhil in Law Candidate at St Edmund Hall College, Oxford, under the supervision of Professor Imogen Goold and Professor Jonathan Herring. Frances is investigating the violence experienced by women in UK maternity wards and how, if at all, tools from the violence against women movement can be used to better understand and eventually combat the specific harm being experienced. Frances is set to become Convenor of the Medical Law and Ethics Discussion Group in Michaelmas 2023, after successfully setting up the Medical and Family Law Student Discussion Forum 2022-2023.

Prior to this, Frances completed the BCL at Hertford College, Oxford, where she undertook modules in Medical Law and Ethics, Comparative Human Rights, Comparative Equality Law and International Human Rights Law. Alongside this, she received the Victoria Fisher Memorial Prize from the University of Leicester in light of her publication on the symbolic and practical importance of abortion rights for women.

In 2021, she graduated from the University of Exeter as Valedictorian and winner of the annual School of Law Prize 2021. During this time, she acted as Editor in Chief of the Exeter Law Review, where she co-founded the ELR Podcast.