XClose

Centre for Empirical Legal Studies

Menu

Events

Future events

Student Empirical Legal Research Conference 2024

The Centre for Empirical Legal Studies will host a first Student Empirical Legal Research Conference, in Bentham House in Bloomsbury between 3pm and 6pm on the afternoon of 20th March 2024. The conference will showcase the empirical research currently being undertaken by postgraduate research students, as well as the empirical project work of students on the undergraduate Law and Social Inquiry course.

The conference will start with Professor Pascoe Pleasence interviewing Professor Dame Hazel Genn on her ‘legal empirical journey’. This will be followed by sessions in which current UCL PhD students present their ‘empirical work in progress’. The conference will then conclude with an expert faculty panel answering empirical legal research related questions in a Question Time session. Research posters produced by current students on the faculty’s undergraduate Law and Social Inquiry course will be displayed throughout.

This first student empirical legal research conference is an invitation only event with only limited placed to be made available for students and staff of other University of London colleges.

Past events

2nd UCL International Conference on Access to Justice and Legal Services

The Centre for Empirical Legal Studies hosted the second UCL International Conference on Access to Justice and Legal Services between the 11th and 13th June 2018 at Bentham House in Bloomsbury, Central London.

Legal service delivery continues to undergo change the world over; brought about as a result technological advancement, market transformations, processes of democratisation, shifts in the delivery of public legal services, and a renewed focus on access to justice following the implementation of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 16.3. Set against this backdrop, the 2018 UCL International Access to Justice Conference provided a forum for knowledge-exchange between international researchers, policy makers and legal service professionals involved in the funding, delivery, development and evaluation of legal services.

The conference provided an opportunity to reflect on recent developments and innovations and to consider how to best prepare for the emerging challenges and opportunities set to define the access to justice agenda in coming years. Amidst the digitisation of justice; growing social inequality; diminishing investment in public legal services in the UK; and the UK’s exit from the European Union, the UCL conference provided a critical focus on access to justice in turbulent times.

The conference booklet, including the programme can be viewed here: UCL International A2J Conference Booklet 2018

A selection of conference papers and presentations can be found here

Conference on Access to Justice and Legal Services – 19th and 20th June 2014

The Centre for Empirical Legal Studies, in conjunction with the Centre for Ethics and Law and Centre for Access to Justice, hosted the first UCL International Conference on Access to Justice and Legal Services on the 19th and 20th June 2014 in the UCL Faculty of Laws.

The global financial crisis, technological advancement, processes of democratisation and market transformation are fuelling rapid change in the funding, availability and delivery of public legal services across the world. In England and Wales, legal services and legal aid are in the midst of a period of unprecedented change, following the Legal Services Act 2007 and Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

The UCL International Conference on Access to Justice and Legal Services provided a UK centred focus on these changes, and brought together researchers, policy makers and legal services professionals from 6 continents to share new findings, ideas and innovations in the access to justice sphere.