King’s College London: King’s hosts Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference
This prestigious conference is traditionally hosted by the home law school of the Society’s President who this year is Professor Catharine MacMillan, from The Dickson Poon School of Law.
Our conference this year will allow people to return to face-to-face meetings and to interact with each other in ways that the Covid pandemic has prevented. The scholarly exchanges made, and the friendships and alliances formed, are invaluable for legal academics. I am delighted that the conference has attracted more delegates than any previous conference; we currently have over 570 registered delegates from around the world.
– Professor Catharine MacMillan, Professor of Private Law, and President of the Society of Legal Scholars
The Society of Legal Scholars aims to advance legal education and scholarship in the UK and Ireland and is “legal education’s principal representative body to the professional bodies and the Government.”
The theme this year is “The links and connections to legal development”, and the event will explore “how links and connections both within one legal system and across different legal systems work to influence the development of law.”
As Professor MacMillan explains, “It is clear that legal systems around the world, and particularly in the United Kingdom, are changing in response to national and international events. It is important to consider how and why legal development has occurred in the past as we undertake current and future changes to the law. It is for this reason that our conference theme has been chosen.”
This year’s conference consists of 28 separate subject sections, and features a number of walks, a publishers’ exhibition, a book launch and four plenary sessions. The plenaries are being delivered by Professor Reinhard Zimmermann, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg; The Rt. Hon Lord Woolman, Inner House of the Court of Session; Professor Mindy Chen-Wishart, Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford; and Professor Michael Lobban, from the Law School, London School of Economics and Political Science. The annual supper will be held in the Great Hall of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn and on 8 September, a dinner will be held in the Members’ Dining Room at the House of Commons.
While primarily an in-person event, some sessions (on 7 and 8 September) can be enjoyed online, with some papers presented remotely.
This year’s conference runs from Tuesday 6 September to Thursday 8 September. There is also an informal dinner for those attending the conference on the evening of Monday 5 September.
The Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference will be held at Bush House, part of King’s College London’s Strand campus.