Prof. Lesley-Jane Smith (United Kingdom)
Director
current term: 2018-2021
Prof. Dr Lesley Jane Smith (b. 1956) trained and qualified as a legal practitioner (Solicitor) in Scotland, working in private practice and government, with subsequent experience in France and at EC level, before relocating to Germany. She is a partner in the law firm Weber-Steinhaus & Smith, Cotton Exchange Bremen (www.webersteinhaus.com) and a member of the Hanseatic Bar of Bremen, Germany. Lesley Jane was appointed as Professor of International and European Economic Law at the Leuphana University Lüneburg in 1996 (www.leuphana.de) and is a guest professor within various university programs across Europe, including the International Space University (ISU). She has since been appointed a visiting professor of space law at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, a university with a long-standing aerospace tradition and involved in space science and engineering.
Lesley Jane has first-hand legal experience as an expert member within the law reform projects working out of certain post-Soviet transformation countries during the nineties and was Rector to the Riga Graduate School of Law, University of Latvia for two years (www.rgsl.edu.lv), a specialist school of European law established by Sweden to facilitate the country’s transition on regaining its independence. Lesley Jane’s major research interests in space law cover the fields of liability for commercial space activities and related issues of debris, industry and agency contracts and procurement, as well as regulatory aspects of Galileo GNSS and IP issues relating to EO and outer space activities.
Lesley Jane became a member of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) in 2003, and was appointed as a Board member at the Naples AGM in 2012. She became a member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) in 2009 and is a longstanding member of the European Center of Space Law (ECSL). In 2012, Jane became a board member (legal) of the European section of Women in Aerospace (WIA-E).