Prof. Łukasz Pohl, PhD, habilitated doctor

Born in Poznań in 1976, he completed his law studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 2000, earning the professional degree of Master of Laws. His master’s thesis, titled “Aiding and Abetting in Polish Criminal Law”, was supervised by Prof. Krystyna Daszkiewicz (b. 1924), a doyenne of Polish criminal law. After graduation, he began his doctoral studies at the Department of Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He obtained his PhD in Legal Sciences in 2004.

His doctoral dissertation, titled “The Crime of Staging an Insurance Accident in Polish Criminal Law (a legal-dogmatic study)”, was supervised by Prof. Aleksander Tobis (b. 1932). He earned his habilitation degree in legal sciences in 2008. This degree was awarded unanimously by the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Law and Administration at Adam Mickiewicz University after a successful habilitation colloquium and lecture. His habilitation thesis was published as the book “The Structure of the Sanctioned Norm in Criminal Law: General Issues” (UAM Scientific Publishing House, Poznań, 2007).

In 2008, following his habilitation, he was appointed Associate Professor at the Department of Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Szczecin. From 2008 to 2019, he served as the head of this department. Until 2015, he also worked at the Department of Criminal Law at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, initially as an assistant professor and from 2009 as an associate professor.

In 2015, he received the title of full professor of legal sciences. Since 2019, he has been employed as a full professor at the University of Szczecin.

His scientific work primarily focuses on the theoretical and dogmatic analysis of the substantive dimension of criminal law. A particular subject of his research is the dogmatically conceptualized structure of crime. He is a strong advocate for responsibly integrating legal scholarship with findings from other disciplines, especially logic, ontology, and analytic philosophy. He is the author of over 100 scholarly works, including numerous articles published in the prestigious legal journal Państwo i Prawo (“State and Law”). An important part of his academic output is his comprehensive, original textbook on general criminal law: “Criminal Law: General Part,” initially published by LexisNexis and currently by Wolters Kluwer.

He is also engaged in academic mentoring. By 2021, he had supervised four doctoral dissertations (2013 – Mariusz Nawrocki, 2014 – Magdalena Kowalewska, 2015 – Marcin Byczyk, 2016 – Konrad Burdziak), all of whom also wrote their master’s theses under his guidance. He has frequently served as a reviewer in proceedings for awarding academic degrees and titles: PhD, habilitation, and professor.

From 2012 to 2018, he served as the Disciplinary Spokesperson for the Minister of Science and Higher Education, receiving an individual first-degree award from the Minister in 2014 for his work. Between 2015 and 2018, he was a member of the Council of Spokespersons, an advisory body to the Minister of Science and Higher Education.

Since 2016, he has worked as a professor at the Institute of Justice in Warsaw, where he chairs the Department of Criminal Law and Procedure and serves as scientific editor of the criminal law volumes of the journal Prawo w Działaniu (“Law in Action”).

He also holds a professional degree in music (specializing in double bass) and is active as a composer. In 2015–2016, Poznań pianist Grzegorz Rudny recorded two studio albums featuring his compositions (About Love. Works for Piano – RecArt 2015; Stories – RecArt 2016). From 2019 to 2020, he was a member of the University Council of the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań.

In the past, he was also a table tennis player.

He is married and father to Zuzanna and Gustaw.