Dame Hazel Genn is Dean of Laws, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies and Co-Director of the University College London Judicial Institute in the Faculty of Law at University College London, where she is also an Honorary Fellow. 

She previously held a Chair and was Head of the Department of Law at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Before joining London University, she held full-time research posts at Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies between 1974 and 1985 and the Cambridge Institute of Criminology between 1972 and 1974. In January 2006, she was appointed as an Inaugural Commissioner of the new Judicial Appointments Commission established under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life between 2003 and 2007. In April 2009, she was appointed to the Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on Judicial Diversity.

Dame Hazel worked with the Judicial Studies Board for 12 years, serving as a member of the Main Board and the Tribunals Committee and contributed to the design and delivery of training for the judiciary at all levels. She served for 8 years as Deputy Chair and then Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council's Research Grants Board. In 2008, she was elected Honorary Mast of the Bench of Gray's Inn.

Following a visit to The Aberdeen Law Project in 2011, Dame Hazel became a Patron. In a press release announcing her appointment, she said,

"I am grateful for the invitation to become a Patron of The Project. It was great to meet the students and hear about the work involved with The Project. I was very impressed and want to be supportive and thus accepted the role as Patron of The Aberdeen Law Project."