Rowie Stolk is an assistant professor at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. Her research focuses on legal protection for collective and public interests, adopting an interdisciplinary perspective to examine the role of interest groups (NGO’s, societal organizations) in the legal system and the position of vulnerable groups and interests in procedural law. Rowie teaches administrative law courses in the bachelor's program and within the master's program in Constitutional and Administrative Law. Additionally, she is a coordinators of Empirical Legal Studies in Leiden and a coordinator for the learning pathway interdisciplinarity. In 2024, she completed her PhD with an interdisciplinary dissertation on the access of interest groups to court.

More information about Rowie Stolk

Research

Rowie Stolk is an assistant professor at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. Her research focuses on judicial proceedings concerning societal issues. She examines, among other topics, how interest groups (such as NGOs and societal organizations) use litigation as a strategy for social, political, or legal change - commonly referred to as strategic litigation or public interest litigation. Additionally, her research explores the position of vulnerable groups in society and their access to effective legal protection. Rowie’s work is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach to societal issues within a procedural legal context.

Her article, "Wie zijn zij…?! De representativiteit van procederende belangenorganisaties" (NTB 2020/8), won the Leiden Meijers Prize for best article within the faculty research program Legitimacy and Effectiveness of Law & Governance in a World of Multilevel Jurisdictions. In 2024, she also received the OCA Publication Award for the best journal article on collective actions with her article "De algemeenbelangactie in strijd met het algemeen belang? Over de representativiteit van algemene belangenbehartigers" (NJB 2023/970).

Rowie serves as the editorial secretary of the administrative law journal JBplus. Additionally, she is a coordinator of Empirical Legal Studies in Leiden and a coordinator for the learning pathway on interdisciplinarity.

In 2024, she defended her dissertation titled "Procederende belangenorganisaties in de polder: Een interdisciplinair perspectief op de toegang tot de rechter". Her dissertation addressed the question of how the legitimacy and effectiveness of interest organizations’ access to administrative and civil courts in cases against the government can be evaluated. During her doctoral research, Rowie was a visiting researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, for five months in 2019.

In 2024, she received a starter grant for interdisciplinary and empirical research on the legitimacy and effectiveness of judicial remedies in public interest cases before administrative and civil courts. She was also rewarded a KIEM grant for an interdisciplinary research on the role of interest groups in the legal system.

Teaching

Rowie teaches various courses in administrative law at both the bachelor's and master's levels. She has coordinated the course Introduction to Administrative Law (BA1), taught tutorials in Administrative Procedural Law (BA3), and teaches the tutorial on vulnerable interests in administrative law as part of the master’s course Administrative Law Issues (MA). She also supervises bachelor’s and master’s theses and provides post-academic education in administrative procedural law.

Curriculum Vitae

Rowie began her studies in Political Science at Leiden University in 2011. A year later, she started studying Law alongside her political science degree. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Political Science cum laude in 2014 and completed her bachelor’s in Law the following year. In 2016, she graduated cum laude with a master’s degree in Constitutional and Administrative Law. During her bachelor’s studies, Rowie completed the Honours College Law program.

While pursuing her master’s degree, she worked as a student assistant in the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law and represented Leiden University in the VAR Moot Court Competition. Additionally, she gained professional experience as a paralegal at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and as an intern at Van der Feltz Advocaten.

After graduating, Rowie started working in 2016 as a Teaching and Research Assistant at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. In 2017, she began her doctoral research at the same department on the legitimacy and effectiveness of interest organizations’ access to the courts, which she completed in 2024. Since 2022, she has been a lecturer and, since 2023, an assistant professor at the department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. She is also one of the coordinators of Empirical Legal Studies@Leiden since 2023, and one of the coordinators for the learning pathway on interdisciplinarity.