Joelle Godard

With great sadness Scots Law News records the death of Joelle Godard, Edinburgh Law School friend and colleague, on 15 June 2008.  She was only 51 but had been very ill for some months.

Joelle taught at the Edinburgh Law School from the late 1980s on, working mostly on comparative criminal law with special reference to France and Scotland.  Her commitment, open approach, and care for her students made her courses very popular.  She also became extremely well-known in the Scottish legal professions, partly for courses on French law, but also because of her leadership in organisations such as the Franco-British Lawyers Association (for which she received the Chevalier des Palmes Academiques from the French Government in 2004).  She was also for several years Director of the European Young Lawyers Programme in Scotland, funded by the British Council.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commitment, care and the spirit of innovation and determination in the face of adversity were the hallmarks of Joelle's personality, but her Edinburgh colleagues will also miss her half-smile and bob of greeting in the corridors and stairs of Old College, as well as the enthusiasm with which she would put forward and embrace a new idea, and finally remember the exceptional affection in which her students held her.  Our sympathy goes to her family and many friends, whose feelings showed in the numbers who went to her funeral in Dunfermline crematorium on 20 June.

The Law School's own tribute is here.  Obituaries also appeared in The Scotsman and the Edinburgh Evening News on 1 and 2 July respectively.