Prof Steve Greenfield


Steve Greenfield has an LLB from Middlesex University an M.Sc. (Econ) from the L.S.E, a PGC in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from the Open University a Graduate Diploma in Psychology from the University of Westminster and a PhD from Westminster. He also has accreditation as a Teacher in Higher Education.

He developed the Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture with Guy Osborn through a broad range of teaching and research activities. Modules have been developed from Year 1 to Year 3 with the addition of a postgraduate course the LLM Entertainment Law. These have included Film and the Law, Law and Culture, Sports Law, Media Law and Entertainment Law.

The research has similarly covered a wide range of areas and produced three books Contract and Control in the Entertainment Industry, (1998), Film and the Law (2001) and Regulating Football (2001). There have also been two edited collections; Law and Sport in Contemporary Society (2000) and Readings in Law and Popular Culture (2005). Numerous journal articles and book chapters have been written encompassing sport, music, film, and contractual theory. Presentations have been given at a wide range of international conferences well beyond the field of law.

He is a founding editor of the Entertainment and Sports Law Journal (ESLJ) that started life with Frank Cass as the Entertainment Law Journal. The book series, Studies in Law, Society and Popular Culture which he co edits with Guy Osborn has produced a number of key texts; Cricket and the Law (David Fraser 2005), Gigs (Paul Chevigny, 2004), Readings in Law and Popular Culture (Eds Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn, 2005), Television and the Legal System (Barbara Villez) and Voicing Dissent: American Artists and the War on Iraq (Edited by Bleuwenn Lechaux, Violaine Roussel).

Grants have been awarded by a variety of bodies for work covering licensing law, football governance models and most recently from the Legal Education Research Network to support and empirical study of contemporary contract teaching.

He has incorporated and ideas and theories from both film theory and psychology; the former around ideas of genre and law film. His latest publication analyses the portrayal of the British Executioner in the film Pierrepoint applying a framework of moral disengagement.

Current projects include work with South African colleagues on the regulation of Youth Sport. He is also currently developing a survey instrument to measure the impact of litigation on range of personnel involved in the organisation and delivery of Youth Sport. He has presented papers on this theme at both the International Coaching Conference and Play the Game in 2013.


Steve's research covers a broad swathe of issues around the intersection between law and areas of popular culture. This has covered football, film, music, licensing, and even mediums. A separate line of inquiry has examined the portrayal of law and lawyers in film.


  • Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture