Category: Forthcoming events

‘Expect to encounter Arthurian legend, but not as you know it. Originally created for the 1587 Gray’s Inn revels and last performed for Elizabeth I at Greenwich Palace in 1588. The candlelit performance in the church will feature members of the Drama Society performing excerpts from the play, interspersed with commentary by academics from KCL. This is the first time it has been performed at an Inn for 432 years. Followed by a drinks reception in the Round.’

Date: 4th June 2019, 5.30-9.00pm

Location: Temple Church, London EC4Y 1AF

Charge: Inner Temple students: Free; Members and Public: £10.25

More information can be found here.

‘How have legislative issues been addressed to remedy racial inequalities and what has been the impact on law, policing, socioeconomic inequalities, media, politics and education?’

Date: 7th February 2019, 6.30-8.00 pm

Location: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘The DLA Conference 2018: “Challenging Everyday Racism – Legal and Policy Initiatives” will explore current equality and discrimination issues through the lens of race. Our speakers will interrogate the strategic litigation and policy tools to challenge racism and the hostile environment for immigrants. Jacqueline McKenzie (solicitor at McKenzie, Beute and Pope), one of our keynote speakers will discuss the lessons learned from representing those affected by the hostile environment and Windrush Scandal. Elizabeth Prochaska’s (Legal Director of Equality and Human Rights Commission) keynote will focus on the ECHR enforcement, including a new inquiry on racist harassment. Ijeoma Omambala (Old Square Chambers) will deliver our regular Legal Update.’

Date: 27th November 2018, 9.30am-5.00pm

Location: Allen & Overy, Bishops Square, London E1 6AD

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘The exhibition places the opening of the legal profession to women in the context of the opening of higher education to women in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and, in the year in which we have celebrated (some) women being granted the right to vote, sets the opening of the legal profession in the context of the suffrage campaign. Come along and see what role Christabel Pankhurst played in the opening of the legal profession to women and what Millicent Garrett Fawcett had to say about the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act as well as finding out more about the pioneering women who, after a long struggle, became the first barristers and solicitors in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Commonwealth.’

Date: 21st October 2018, 11:00am–6:00pm

Location: Conway Hall

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘This talk presents an overview of pseudoscience within therapeutic contexts in the twenty-first century, juxtaposed with the risks posed to public health and the criminal justice system. It identifies the adverse outcomes that may arise from specific psychotherapeutic treatments and popular pseudo-scientific beliefs. The justice response and published cases are briefly explored. This talk concludes by advancing the case for increased therapeutic regulation and justice safeguards.’

Date: 29th January 2019, 6.00-7.30pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘Sexual crime remains a matter of deep public concern and has received considerable scrutiny over the years. A pivotal event was the unprecedented reporting of sexual allegations that followed a TV documentary in October 2012 about the late Jimmy Savile leading to the Metropolitan Police forming Operation Yewtree. This talk seeks to place these events in context, to understand the factors that can impact upon the investigation and how it continues to shape the police approach to allegations reported sometimes years after the events. These types of allegation will always raise strong opinions among commentators. Some believe that such a serious crime as child abuse should always go before the courts regardless of time passed. There are others who state it is an affront to natural justice and that such prosecutions are unsafe. We will explore whether delays in reporting can secure safe and ethical prosecutions or inevitably lead to justice denied for the accused or the complainant.’

Date: 15th January 2019, 6.00-7.30pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘The Parole Board turned 50 in 2017 but it has recently found itself the subject of high profile stories about what appear to be dangerous and risky decisions to release high profile prisoners convicted of the most serious of crimes. Is this a new issue? How are these decisions made and how on earth can murderers, robbers or rapists ever be safely released to the community? What are the tools to achieve this and how much can Parole assessments be relied upon to predict risk?

In this talk prison lawyer Emma McClure lays out how the Parole Board operates in practice; the way risk assessments are conducted and the problems that exist in the current system in trying to make evidence-based decisions and the management of society’s most dangerous people within a problem-ridden criminal justice system.’

Date: 11th December 2018, 6.00-7.00pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘To inform a criminal investigation, police may ask an eyewitness to that crime to try to identify the perpetrator from a lineup. Eyewitnesses, however, have a bad reputation for being unreliable. That reputation is due to, in part, the fact that eyewitness researchers once viewed the relationship between the accuracy of an eyewitness’s initial identification and the confidence expressed in that identification as weak. Lab-based and field studies alike show that identifications made with high confidence are highly accurate whereas identifications made with low confidence are much less so. Confidence expressed during the initial procedure is therefore diagnostic of accuracy. In fact, it is by far the best predictor of accuracy. And when taken into account, the data challenge the longstanding notion that eyewitnesses are unreliable. The data also provide a way for the criminal justice system to improve the probative value of eyewitness evidence.’

Date: 27th November 2018, 6.00-7.30pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘Visit Senate House Library’s Periodicals Room for talks and collection displays marking anniversaries of two important Parliamentary Acts – the centenary allowing women over 21 the right to stand for election as an MP and the 15 year anniversary of the repeal of Section 28, the anti-gay legislation.’

Date: 21st November 2018, 3.00-5.00pm

Location: Senate House Library, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘Politics curator Daniel Payne explores the origins of European integration and anti-federalist movements through the archive material on display in ‘What Does Brexit Mean to You?’. The discussion will consider how both these early movements for and against further integration with Europe have influenced the 2016 Brexit referendum and the earlier 1975 referendum. There will also be a chance to discuss what Brexit means to you.’

Date: 15th November 2018, 1.00-2.00pm

Location: LSE Library Gallery, Portugal Street, London WC2A 2HD

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘The Urban Law Day is a specialised forum aiming to bring together a multidisciplinary circle of academics and practitioners interested in urban legislation, including planners, architects, policy makers, economists, urbanises, and lawyers.’

Date: 13th July 2018, 10.00am-1.30om

Location: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR

Charge: Free, registration required

More information can be found here.

‘This year’s special theme – ‘Refugee Protection in a Hostile World?’ – reflects on an apparent strengthening of long-standing currents of anti-refugee feeling and other forms of instability in the world. This trend raises urgent questions about its present and future impact on refugee protection globally, as well as the interaction between global politics and refugee law.’

Date: 18th – 19th July 2018, 9.00am-8.00pm

Location: The Beveridge Hall, Ground Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘In a year which has already seen reports on the effects of racial bias in the law and areas of public life from David Lammy and the government’s Race Audit, The Kalisher Trust Theatre Event hopes to provoke debate about the present by turning its dramatic searchlight on a case from the past.’

Date: 4th March, 6.00-9.00pm

Location: Middle Temple Hall

Charge: £60 (students £10)

More information can be found here.

‘The crucially important role of social housing has been recognised following the Grenfell Tower disaster, which also laid bare the disconnect between the ‘elites’ and the most disadvantaged in society.This event explores the link between inequality and housing, evidenced by the growing demand for low cost rented housing among those on the very lowest incomes. Unless the voices of communities and residents are heard and taken seriously, there is a risk that gaps in society will widen even further.’

Date: 23rd February 2018, 6.30-7.30pm

Location: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, London School of Economics

Charge: Free, see website for details

More information can be found here.

Dr Colum Kenny, Emeritus Prof of Communications at Dublin City University

‘From 1542 until 1885, men wishing to practise at the Irish Bar were required first to reside
for a stipulated period at one of the London Inns of Court. The Irish barrister and sometime
Unionist leader Edward Carson heatedly described that requirement as “one of the badges
of servitude of the Irish nation.”

On the eve of Ireland’s national holiday, Dr Kenny will tell the story of King’s Inns, Dublin,
since its foundation in 1541 — with particular reference to Ireland’s long association with the
Inner Temple and other English Inns of Court.’

Date: 16th March 2018, 6.00pm

Location: The Inner Temple

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘In 1947 the United Nations was in the process of drafting what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies was founded. Getting agreement on what those rights would be was not easy. For example, on 6 December 1947, 70 years before this lecture, the Working Group on the Declaration considered whether the right to life began at conception. On 11 June 1948, when IALS opened in its first building at 25 Russell Square, the Commission on Human Rights rejected a French proposal that human rights should include intellectual property (which re-emerged later) and postponed discussion on a right to social security. There was nothing at all about discrimination and sexual orientation.’

Date: 6th December 2017, 5.30-7.30pm

Location: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR

Charge: Free, booking required

More information can be found here.

‘Dr Azmi Sharom is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya where he has taught for 27 years. He currently lectures Human Rights Law, International Environmental Law and Conflict of Laws and is Head of the Faculty of Law’s Human Rights Research Group. He is also currently President of the Academic Staff Union of University Malaya.’

Date: 31st October 2017, 5.30-7.00pm

Location: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre

Charge: Free, registration required

More information can be found here.

‘Based on a decade of field research, Barbara Owen will discuss her co-authored book In Search of Safety. The authors argue that intersectional inequalities and cumulative disadvantages are at the root of the gendered harms that both mirror women’s pathways to prison and constrain their experience while confined. Women must negotiate these inequities by developing forms of prison capital—social, human, cultural, emotional, and economic—to ensure their safety while inside. This conflict and subsequent violence result from human-rights violations inside the prison that occur within the gendered context of substandard prison conditions, inequalities of capital among those imprisoned, and relationships with correctional staff. By claiming such gendered harms are a form of state-sponsored suffering, In Search of Safety proposes a way forward—the implementation of international human-rights standards – The Bangkok and the Mandela Rules– for all women’s prisons.’

Date: 26th October 2017, 6.00-7.00pm

Location: Eng 1.03, Malet Place Engineering Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

Charge: Free, registration required

More information can be found here.

‘Inequality is receiving increasing attention from social scientists and policy-makers alike. Whilst criminal justice scholars have long recognised that levels of inequality correlate with rates of crime and punishment, the causal mechanisms underlying these correlations are less well understood. Building on recent comparative and historical research on the institutional, cultural and political-economic factors shaping crime and punishment, this conference aims to advance understanding of whether, and if so how and why, social and economic inequality influences levels and types of crime and punishment, and conversely the impact of different levels and types of crime and punishment on various forms of inequality.’

Date: 7th-8th December 2017, 9.30am-5.00pm

Location: The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

Charge: See website for details

More information can be found here.

‘This paper considers some of the ways in which minor jurisprudences might provide a training in the conduct of the office of Jurisprudent of London (if such an office is still in use). Since the 1990s minor jurisprudences have emphasised variation and dissonance in relation major institutional and critical forms of jurisprudence. They have done so by finding and providing alternate sources, training and purpose in the instruction of the conduct of lawful relations. Reporting, rather loosely, on the writings of Peter Goodrich, Panu Minkkinen and Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihaloppous, this paper considers some of the ways minor jurisprudences recommend caring for the conduct of lawful relations of a place. The motivating conceit of this paper follows the understanding that London bears or carries a jurisprudence and that this can be studied through an engagement with the material ordering of the city. The paper reports back on research conducted between 2013-2017 on encounters of lawful relations along the TfL 345 bus route from Peckham bus Station to South Kensington.’

Date: 1st November 2017, 1.00-2.30pm

Location: RUS 101, Birkbeck, University Of London, 30 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DT

Charge: Free, registration required

More information can be found here.