Professor Nils Hoppe

Solicitor Advocate (England & Wales)
Solicitor (non-practising, Republic of Ireland)

Nils is a founding partner of LDMH, and a solicitor advocate. His work at LDMH focuses on dispute resolution, and legal and regulatory aspects of biomedical research.

He is an established academic, and the current incumbent of the Professorship in Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences at the University of Hannover, where he is also the Dean of Research in the Humanities. He has held visiting professorships at Milan and Vienna, and has been a regular visiting academic at Oxford. Nils has published widely, including in Science and Nature Biotechnology, and he is author of the Cambridge University Press textbook on Medical Law and Medical Ethics. Amongst other high-profile advisory roles, he has been an external advisor to the European Commission, and a member of UK Biobank’s Ethics and Governance Council. His research interests are in the use of human biomaterials in research and therapy, and in the regulation of innovative methods and health products.

Nils’ roles in legal practice have ranged from being a legal secretary and a litigation paralegal at Browne Jacobson LLP, in-house counsel at a leading university hospital, and a consultant lawyer at various firms, most recently at Hill Dickinson LLP. Having originally trained as a Barrister (but having never been called to the Bar), he holds a CIArb qualification in international arbitration, and has qualified as a solicitor advocate with higher rights of audience (civil).

Besides assisting our clients in dispute resolution matters, Nils has advised biobanks, large-scale research clusters, and clinical trials with a particular focus on research governance, consent aspects, and cross-border issues. He also provides advice on ethical issues in biomedical research and innovation, and has assisted in tricky applications to research ethics committees, animal welfare committees, and institutional review boards.