Ingvill Helland (born 1977) obtained her first law degree from the University of Bergen in 2003. During her studies, she also spent a year as an Erasmus student at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, mainly focusing on comparative law, EU law and human rights. During her studies, she worked 50 % as a research assistant to the Dean, Professor Ernst Nordtveit, for about two years, during which time she conducted research, proof-read scientific works and participated in the organisation of several international seminars. She was also engaged in student work, spending three terms as editor of the students’ magazine and one term as leader for the largest law students’ association in Bergen, Jurisforeningen. Following her graduation, she pursued further studies at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, Germany, where she obtained an LL.M. degree in 2006 with the grade 1,5 (sehr gut). Her thesis , which was awarded the mark of 1,3 (sehr gut), was entitled Norwegian law on jurisdiction and choice of laws in cases concerning personality rights and published with the series of the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen in 2007. In 2005, she started work as an assistant professor with the University of Bergen, teaching mainly human rights and legal method and conducting independent research.
Having spent a term as a trainee with the European

Court of Human Rights in 2007, she commenced her doctoral studies in 2008, and in 2012 was awarded her PhD degree on the basis of the thesis Rulings of the European Court of Human Rights as a legal argument – a comparison between German and Norwegian law, supervised by Professor Jørgen Aall, Bergen, and PD (now Professor) Rainer Grote with the Max Planck Institute of International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. She is currently employed as a postdoctoral researcher with the interdisciplinary NORGLOBAL project “Health promotion, dignity and human rights: improvement of maternal health,” headed by Professor Henriette Sinding Aasen at the University of Bergen. The project aims to reduce maternal mortality in Tanzania through improvement of the legal framework to supplement other efforts. Her research focuses on human rights, constitutional law and legal method, primarily in a comparative perspective, and in addition to her postdoctoral project she is currently leading a project comparing Nordic and Scandinavian legal methods. Besides Norwegian, Ingvill Helland is fluent in English and German and has a working knowledge of French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. She is a keen traveller and hobby photographer, and is currently the leader of the faculty’s curling team which last year came in second in the business league in Bergen.

Monika Hinteregger is based in Graz, Austria. In October 1994 she was appointed Professor of Civil Law at the Department of Civil Law, Foreign Private and Private International Law of the Karl Franzens University Graz. From November 2003 until October 2013 she was President of the Senate of the Karl Franzens University Graz and from 2009 – 2013 Director of the Department. Her research activities focus on European and Austrian tort law, property law and family law. During her career she served several times as visiting professor at other universities in Europe (Hungary, Italy), USA (Rutgers Law School, Camden, New Jersey) and

Asia (University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) and as legal advisor to the Austrian government concerning the drafting of legislation in the field of environmental and nuclear liability law as well as general tort law. She is a board member of the Austrian Lawyers Association (Österreichischer Juristentag) and the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law. Since 2012 she is Director of the Centre of European Private Law of the Karl Franzens University Graz.

Sören Koch (born 1975) started his studies of administrative sciences in Konstanz in 1997 following two years of military service, but soon switched to law and history. In 1999, he obtained a bachelor degree in history. Having relocated to Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, in 2001, he went on to complete his first state exam in law in 2003. Taking up a position as research assistant to Professor Nils Jansen first in Düsseldorf and subsequently in Münster, he commenced his doctoral studies. From 2005 to 2007, he worked part-time as a private tutor in (private) law with the Hemmer/Wüst Repetitorium in Kiel before completing his Referendariat at the Oberlandesgericht Schleswig in 2007.
He then became solicitor, with a specialisation in labour law. After two years as attorney with the law firm Brock/Müller/Ziegenbein, Flensburg, he went on to complete his doctoral studies in Norway. In 2009, he was awarded the degree of Dr. Jur. from the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, with the thesis Unaufgeforderte Hilfeleistung in Notsituationen – eine rechtshistorische und rechtsvergleichende Studie zu den zivilrechtlichen Aspekten der Nothilfe mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Rechts der Geschäftsführung ohne Auftrag, focusing on the legal consequences

of rendering unsolicited assistance in emergency situations. From 2009 to 2010, he was a researcher with the project Temporal dimensions of tort law, headed by Professor Bjarte Askeland at the University of Bergen.
Having successfully applied for a full-time scholarship, he commenced studies for his second doctoral degree at the University of Bergen in 2010. This thesis focuses on Ludvig Holberg’s natural law and will be completed in 2014. On the basis of his German qualifications, however, he was appointed associate professor by the Bergen Faculty of Law in 2013. During his time in Norway, Sören Koch has obtained a thorough understanding of the Norwegian legal system, which has resulted in a number of publications also on Norwegian law. He is a member of the research groups for legal cultures, contract law, tort law and legal theory at the Bergen faculty of law, and has been commended for his seminars in tort law and legal culture, and is heading a project comparing Nordic and Germanistic legal method. The initial article of this project was published with the Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht in 2013 and well received.

Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde (born 1972) graduated in law at the University in Bergen in 1999, began writing his doctor thesis at the Faculty of Law in Tromsø in 2000, received his doctoral degree in Bergen in 2007, and became professor in Legal History there the same year. Since 2006 Sunde had been head of research at the museum the barony Rosendal, and between 2008-2010 he was also professor at the Centre for Medieval Studies in Bergen. Sunde had a leave from the work on his thesis in 2003-2004 to write Speculum legal (2005), the first textbook on Norwegian legal history since 1972. He has also published Den juridiske komedien (The Legal Comedy) in 2007, and edited Rettstekstar i mellomalderen (Legal Texts in the Middle Ages) (2006), Dekalogen (2008) and

Rendezvous of European Legal Cultures (2010), and is presently editing Constitutionalism before 1789 (2014) and Encounters of Legal Cultures in the Nordic Realms 1100-1400 (2015), and is writing The History of the Norwegian Supreme Court 1965-2015 (2015). Sunde is in the editorial board of the series Acta Scandinavica (Brepols) and the journal Glossae - European Journal of Legal History. From 2007 Sunde has been responsible for the compulsory subject Legal history and Comparative Law: Legal Culture in a Europe in Change, at his own faculty, and the subject is now also taught at three other institutions in Norway under his supervision. In 2010 he became head of the Research Group of Legal Culture since 2010.

Thomas Thiede studied Law, Economics and Political Sciences at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, Germany where he obtained his Bachelor of Laws in 2003 having worked as an assistant for Prof. Dr. Stefan Habermeier. He then went on to complete a Master of Laws (Comparative and EU Law) at the same institution followed by his First State Exam (Referendarsexamen) in October 2006. Following this and having taken a position as a scientific assistant at the Institute for European Tort Law of

the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, he began his doctoral studies under Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bernhard Koch, LL.M. and o.Univ.-Prof. i.R. Dr. Dr. h.c. Helmut Koziol. In 2010 he was awarded his doctorate summa cum laude from the University of Innsbruck and promoted to a Junior Scientist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of 2013 he joined the Centre of European Private Law of the University of Graz where he teaches courses and lectures on Comparative Law and Conflict of Laws.