Staff profile

Dr Emily Roach is an Assistant Professor in Financial Law. She is Director of Undergraduate Studies and Deputy Director of Employability at Durham Law School. For the 2026-7 academic year, Emily is also a Visiting Fellow at St Chad's College.

Emily holds an MA and PhD from the University of York and a BA (Hons) in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford. 

Following her undergraduate degree, Emily completed the Post-Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice (LPC) at the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice. Emily trained at leading City firm Allen & Overy LLP (now A&O Shearman) and qualified into the market-leading restructuring team. As a mid-level associate Emily moved to the London office of Boston-headquartered Ropes & Gray International LLP, specialising in restructuring, distressed debt trading and special situations.

Emily brings practical experience to legal education with extensive first-hand experience representing insolvency officeholders, bondholder committees, hedge counterparties, senior and subordinated lenders and private equity sponsors, acting for stakeholders across the capital structure on complex cross-border restructurings and distressed acquisitions. Much of Emily’s practice was shaped by the 2008 global banking crisis and the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Teaching Areas

Emily is an experienced lecturer who has taught extensively across undergraduate (LLB), academic postgraduate (LLM, MSc) and professional postgraduate (LPC, PgDL, SQE) courses. Together with Financial Law, Emily has particular expertise in Contract Law, Equity & Trusts and Company Law.

Emily has designed and convened a number of postgraduate modules both at Durham Law School and in previous posts. These modules have drawn on Emily's technical legal knowledge and experience working at market-leading City firms in areas such as corporate insolvency and restructuring, leveraged finance, financial products and contracts and the private capital markets. Emily uses real world case studies, contracts and transaction simulations to explore the application of law and regulation in practice.

Emily has a deep interest in interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and scholarship. She runs student-focused sessions on the essentials of accounts and corporate finance for lawyers and has taught Business of Law modules in previous posts. Emily is also interested in interdisciplinary research methods, frequently working at the intersections of Law, Finance and Arts, Media and Culture. This interdisciplinary expertise has enabled Emily to teach across disciplines. She has lecturing experience in English Literature and Film, specialising in modernist and contemporary periods.

• Financial products and contracts
• Financial crisis, distressed debt, restructuring and corporate insolvency
• Debt capital markets, banking and debt finance with a particular interest in structured and leveraged finance
• Private credit and private equity
• Financial law, popular culture and the creative industries
• Law and Literature, Law and Film/Television
• British and American LGBTQ+ legal histories (broadly from World War I to the present)
• Legal pedagogy