Brian Tobin

Awards

• Winner, Legal Educator of the Year, LEAP Irish Law Awards 2025
• Winner, CBPPL Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 2023
• Winner, CBPPL Dean’s Award for Inclusive Teaching 2021
• Shortlisted for the Society of Legal Scholars’ Margaret Brazier Prize for Outstanding Scholarship 2024

Dr Brian Tobin is an Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer at University of Galway School of Law. He holds LL.B, LL.M and PhD degrees from the University of Dublin, Trinity College, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from University of Galway.

Brian’s primary research interests are in Family and Child Law, with a particular focus on the legal recognition of contemporary family forms and the position of children born via donor‐assisted human reproduction (DAHR) and surrogacy. He has published widely in leading peer‐reviewed journals, including the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, Child and Family Law Quarterly, the Dublin University Law Journal, the Irish Jurist, the Australian Journal of Family Law and the European Human Rights Law Review. His book, The Legal Recognition of Same‐Sex Relationships: Emerging Families in Ireland and Beyond (Oxford: Hart, 2023), described by Mr Justice Gerard Hogan of the Supreme Court of Ireland as “scholarship at its finest in terms of avant garde family law”, was shortlisted for the Society of Legal Scholars’ Margaret Brazier Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in 2024.

Brian has a sustained record of engagement with parliamentary committees and law reform processes at both domestic and international levels. He has been invited to provide expert written and oral evidence to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality (2014), the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy (2022) and the Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration (2025). Internationally, he has been invited to appear before the UK All‐Party Parliamentary Group on Surrogacy (APPG Surrogacy), to contribute to the UK regional consultation on the Verona Principles, and to contribute to an impact assessment for an EU‐level legislative initiative, a Digital Certificate of Parenthood.

He has secured external research funding from the Royal Irish Academy, the Department of Justice (Ireland), the Society of Legal Scholars and, as part of an academic consortium, the Irish Research Council. He also has a significant presence in print and broadcast media, where he contributes to informing public debate on contemporary issues in family law.

At University of Galway, Brian has held senior administrative roles, including Deputy Head of School, Director of Student Career Development, and Programme Director of the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL). He has also served as a member of the University’s Research Ethics Committee (REC).

Externally, from 2018 to 2019, Brian was a Visiting Researcher at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. From 2022 to 2025, he was a Council Member of TREOIR, the national federation of services for unmarried parents, and in 2025 he was appointed as a Board Member of the newly-established Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority (AHRRA) by the Minister for Justice.