Loran Kostense is Assistant Professor at the Department of Private Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and related to the Amstercam Centre for Family Law She obtained her PhD in Private Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in May 2026, with a dissertation on the child’s perspective in divorce-related relocation disputes (verhuiszaken). Her expertise lies in empirical legal studies at the intersection of law and the social sciences, with a particular focus on family and youth law, children’s perspectives, and legal decision-making. Kostense combines legal analysis with empirical research methods from the social sciences to examine how law operates in practice and how legal decision-making relates to the experiences of those involved. Alongside her research, she teaches and supervises students in the bachelor’s and master’s programmes and contributes to the development of empirical-legal education.

Loran Kostense studies how people experience and respond to law, and how their experiences can inform legal decision-making. Her research focuses particularly on family and youth law, where legal decisions can have a profound impact on children and parents. A central question in her work is how the perspectives and experiences of those affected by legal decisions can be meaningfully incorporated into legal processes and judicial decision-making.

Her PhD research examined divorce-related relocation disputes within the Netherlands and the consequences of relocation for children and parents. This research combined legal analysis with social-scientific methods, including a scoping review, systematic case-law analysis, an expert-meeting, survey research and interviews with children and parents. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between legal frameworks, judicial decision-making and the lived experiences of families involved in relocation disputes.

Building on this work, Kostense currently conducts empirical legal research on children’s perspectives and participation in family and youth law, complex divorce and child protection proceedings, and the experiences and outcomes associated with legal decision-making. She is also interested in procedural justice, trust in the judiciary and the rule of law, and in how psychological processes influence legal decision-making. Her work is characterised by interdisciplinary empirical-legal approaches that combine legal research with insights and methods from psychology and other social sciences.

Loran Kostense teaches and supervises students in the bachelor’s and master’s programmes at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her teaching focuses on the intersection of law and the social sciences, with particular attention to negotiation and conflict resolution, psychological processes in legal decision-making, and empirical legal research. She aims to connect legal doctrine and professional skills with insights into how people actually reason, negotiate, experience and respond to law. Kostense also supervises bachelor’s and master’s theses, particularly on topics related to family law, empirical legal studies, psychology and law, and dispute resolution.

• Recht der Werkelijkheid | Den Haag | Redactielid Tijdschrift | 2025-08-01 - present

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