Professor Jodi Gardner

Jodi Gardner joined the University of Auckland Faculty of Law in April 2023 as the Brian Coote Chair in Private Law and currently serves as Associate Dean (Research). Her scholarship examines the relationship between private law and social policy, with a particular focus on the ways doctrinal law addresses poverty, inequality, and financial exclusion. She has written on topics including inequality in contract law, vulnerability in tort law, high-cost credit agreements, the impact of austerity measures, debt collection contracts, concurrent liability in tort and contract, and the effect of technological developments on equality.

Alongside her academic role, Jodi serves as Principal Legal AI Advisor at Thomson Reuters, helping shape the future of AI in the legal sector, and previously worked as Chief Legal Officer at Safe Sign Technologies, a digital identity and authentication company. Earlier in her career, she was a solicitor in litigation and banking & finance at Clayton Utz and a community lawyer specialising in consumer rights.

At ALTeR, Jodi brings her combined expertise in law, technology, and social justice to help design legal frameworks that protect the most vulnerable while enabling responsible innovation.

Selected publications

• Algorithmic Credit Scoring in Vietnam: A Legal Proposal for Maximizing Benefits and Minimizing Risks (Asian Journal of Law and Society, 2023) · Banning contactless and credit card surcharges won’t help – open banking reform is what’s needed

• Continuing the Product Liability Illusion (Oxford University Press, 2024)

• The UK’s Energy Crises: A Study of Market and Institutional Precarity (King’s Law Journal, 2024)

• Open Banking in the UK and Singapore: Open Possibilities for Enhancing Financial Inclusion (SSRN 2022 & Journal of Business Law 2021)

• Being Conscious of Unconscionability in Modern Times: Heller v Uber Technologies (Modern Law Review, 2021)