Main Focus
- History of legal scholarship, especially history of methodology
- Contemporary legal history
- Doctrinal civil law and its theory
Project
Curriculum Vitae
Susanne K. Paas studied History, German Studies, and Law at the universities of Münster, Cologne, Berlin and Yale. She received a Bachelor’s degree in History and German Studies from the University of Münster in 2008; studied law and in the Master program of the historical department of the University of Cologne. She passed the First State Examination in Law at the Higher Regional Court of Cologne in 2013, and passed the Second State Examination in Law at GJPA in Berlin. For her work “Das bewegliche System. Zur Karriere einer juristsichen Denkfigur” (The Flexible System: On the Career of a Juridical Figure of Thought), she was awarded a doctoral degree in 2020 from the University of Cologne. Moreover, she has an LL.M. from Yale Law School (2023).
Over the years she has held several academic positions. She was a Research Assistant at the Institute for Modern Private Law History at the University of Cologne (Prof. Dr. Haferkamp), and later at the Chair of Civil Law, Contemporary Legal History, and Economic Legal History at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Prof. Dr. Thiessen). Since 2021, she has been a Researcher in Department “Multidisciplinary Theory of Law” (Prof. Dr. Marietta Auer) at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory (with a one-year leave to pursue the abovementioned LL.M.).
She has had research stays at the University of Toronto in 2023 and at the University of Stockholm in 2026.
Awards and grants
- For The Flexible System: On the Career of a Juridical Figure of Thought: Faculty Prize of the Faculty of Law, University of Cologne (2021); Hermann Conring Prize (2022); and recognition as “Legal Book of the Year” (2021).
- LL.M. studies at Yale Law School: supported by an ERP Scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and Yale Law School through the Chauncey I. Clark Scholarship.
Presentations (a selection)
- ‘Unberührt von Politik? Das Zivilrecht im Nationalsozialismus’ (Unaffected by Politics? Civil Law under National Socialism), Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, April 2026
- ‘Responsive Rechtsdogmatik und ihre Kritik – Eine historische Betrachtung’ (Responsive Legal Doctrine and Its Critique: A Historical Perspective), Ringvorlesung Responsive Rechtswissenschaft, Bucerius Law School, December 2025
- ‘Folgenorientierung – Amateursoziologie von der Richterbank oder Pflicht der Wissenschaft?’ (Consequences-based Reasoning: Amateur Sociology from the Bench or a Scholarly Obligation?), Freie Universität Berlin, Empirical Legal Studies Center (FUELS), June 2024
- ‘Absence or Abundance of Law in Dictatorship’, Conference Law, Culture and Humanities, University of Toronto, June 2023
Selected Teaching
- Lecture in European Legal History, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder)
- University Exam Preparation Course in Family and Inheritance Law, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin
- Lecture in Legal Philosophy, EBS University of Business and Law, Wiesbaden
- Lecture in Contractual and Statutory Obligations, EBS University of Business and Law, Wiesbaden
- Methods Seminar for Doctoral Candidates, University of Vienna, Vienna
Academic Outreach
- Academic consulting for the art project „Convicting Concrete“ by Kasia Fudakowski & Philipp Modersohn | Booklet
- Academic development of the international travelling exhibition on the National Socialist past of the Federal Ministry of Justice, “ „Die Rosenburg“