Staff Profiles

Dr Abigail Rekas (She/Her) is a Lecturer Above the Bar in Law & Innovation at the University of Galway. Her research focuses on copyright law, the arts, and access to culture. Presently, she has 4 active research streams: archiving and preserving video games, AI and copyright, technology and law and access to culture for persons with disabilities.  Dr. Rekas co-directs the LLM on Law & Digital Innovation at the University. 

Recently, Dr. Rekas has co-organised the conference Game Changers:The Business of Games - A Legal Perspective, bringing together experts in the law and business of games from around the world with games industry professionals, where she presented research on the legal challenges of archiving and preserving video games. She also, in 2023, served as an expert in a working group on this topic at the University of Glasgow Create Centre.   

Dr. Rekas has spoken widely about the impact of generative AI on copyright law to diverse groups, including the World Conference of Screenwriters, the Irish Arts Council and the Centre for Creative Technologies at the University of Galway. 

A Board member of the International Future of Law Association, Dr. Rekas has co-organised IFLA conferences as well as presented and chaired panels on legal tech and the future of the legal profession. 

Dr. Rekas lectures diverse modules, such as Entertainment Law, Design Thinking for Lawyers and Access to Justice and Digital Transformation. She also serves as Director of Mooting for the School of Law. She is a member of the Technology & Rights, and Commercial Law Research clusters at the University of Galway. 

Prior to her current post, Dr Rekas taught at the School of Law at the Universität Augsburg and was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Early Career Research Fellow working on the Marie Curie Disability Rights Expanding Accessible Markets (DREAM) Project from 2011-13.

Abigail was granted a Ph.D. in 2023 from the University of Galway for a thesis titled 'Yes, And: Implementation of the Article 30 Guarantee of Access to Cultural Materials for Persons with Disabilities.'  Abigail also holds a Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law (2011). She is a member in good standing of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Abigail graduated summa cum laude with departmental honors from the University of Massachusetts and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the same (2007).