CALL FOR PAPERS: Diversity, dilemmas and discoveries: Histories of legal education (Open University Law School - Legal History Research Center, 15 OCT 2021); DEADLINE 8 OCT 2021

(image: the Royal Charter for the Open University; source: Wikimedia Commons)

Legal education is facing significant changes and challenges, from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic to reviews and reforms of professional legal training and debates around the future of the legal professions. The core content and assumptions underpinning law degrees are being challenged by movements to decolonise and liberate our curricula. New technologies and changes to the professions mean that our students require different skills, while the growing proportion of law students who will never practise as lawyers pose fresh challenges and possibilities. This is therefore an opportune moment to consider how legal education has developed, and why.

This one-day online conference will explore histories of legal education in the common law world, as well as methodologies and approaches to researching them. We invite proposals for 15-minute papers on any aspect, and particularly welcome those which address the central theme of diversity, dilemmas and discoveries. Potential themes may include:

• Legal education and the British empire 
• The legal education of women, working class, and ethnic minority students 
• Legal education beyond the law school 
• Legal education within the law school 
• Methodologies of legal education history.

Abstracts (not exceeding 300 words) should be submitted by email to OULS-legalhistory@open.ac.uk by Friday 8 October.

(source: OpenUniversity)