Dr Jonathan Ainslie

Biography

I have been a lecturer in private law at the University of Aberdeen since February 2022. I am the Co-Director, with Dr JP Fassnidge, of the Centre for Scots Law and the Principal Investigator of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Death and Law: Interdisciplinary Explorations project. 

From 2018 to 2021 I was a tutor at the University of Edinburgh, where I also obtained my LLB Hons, LLM and PhD. Outside of academia, I am a member of the children's panel for Aberdeen City. I grew up in Bridge of Earn, Perthshire. 

I am currently seeking full time or part time PhD students in the areas of Scots private law and Scottish legal history.

Research Overview

My research interests relate broadly to the influence of the Roman legal tradition on contemporary issues in Scots private law. 

My recent published articles have concerned duties of good faith, third party rights and remedies for breach in contract law, as well as the protection of privacy in delict/tort. I am currently working on a historical study of payments by Scottish courts in solatium (for pain, suffering and hurt feelings) and a comparison of the English doctrine of the unconscionable bargain with the Scottish doctrine of fraud, facility and circumvention. 

I am part of the Death and Law: Interdisciplinary Explorations research project. The purpose of this project is to re-examine legal perspectives on death using insights from other disciplines. My focus within this project is the legal protection of human remains. 

I am interested in the influence of the legal writings of Dutch jurists from the 17th and 18th centuries (the so-called "Roman-Dutch" jurists) on Scots law. This was a period of time when most Scottish lawyers received their legal education in the Low Countries, Dutch legal writing circulated widely in Scottish legal libraries and Dutch authors were frequently cited before the Scottish courts. I have a long-term research project to explore this. 

Funding and Grants

Scottish Universities Law Institute Early Career Fellowship (2023) 

Aberdeen Humanities Fund Grant (Principal Investigator) (2025) 

Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Collaboration Grant (Principal Investigator) (2026) 

Teaching Responsibilities

I teach across a wide range of private law courses in all four years of the LLB programme, including both Scots and English law courses. I am the course coordinator for LS2031 Law of Property, LS2537 Tort in Comparative Context and LS453K Property Law (Honours). 

I am the senior personal tutor for the School of Law.