Edinburgh Postgraduate Law Conference 2021 - Keynote Panel

The Keynote for this year’s Edinburgh Postgraduate Law Conference 2021 is a panel discussion bringing together three distinguished speakers to give their unique perspectives on this year’s theme: “Great Expectations: When Law Meets Reality”. The theme explores the relationship—and potential mismatch— between our ‘expectations’ of the law (this could relate to the general values we place upon it, such as certainty and fairness; specific reasons for implementing a particular law or the objectives that a law was meant to achieve) and the ‘reality’ i.e. how law is applied in practice; how it has been interpreted by judges; or the unintended side effects produced by legal changes.

This year, we are happy to host:

• The Hon Lady Wolffe, appointed as a Senator of the College of Justice, Scotland’s Supreme Courts in 2014. She is one of the Commercial Court judges and the first women in Scotland to hold that position. Her principal areas in practice are in Commercial and Public law. She was one of the founding members of Axiom Advocates. Whilst in practice, she was a contributor or Scottish editor to a number of editions of two legal textbooks - MacGillivray on Insurance Law and Mithani on Director’s Disqualification. She was also one of the UK members on the Panel of Experts looking at the harmonisation of aspects of professional indemnity insurance.  
• Professor Sharon Cowan , Professor of Feminist and Queer Legal Studies at University of Edinburgh.  One of her research projects includes co-editing the Scottish Feminist Judgments Project.  Some of her research interests include: Gender, Sexuality and the Law; Feminist Legal Theory; Criminal Justice; Asylum studies. 
• Professor Richard Sparks , Professor of Criminology  at Edinburgh Law School and was previously Head of the  School. His research interests  include the sociology of punishment and penal politics, prisons and policy-formation. 

This event is free and open to all! While those who sign up for the full registration will get the Zoom links to the keynote panel (as well as the Zoom links to all other conference events), we are also advertising the keynote panel as a standalone event (for those who only want to attend just the keynote).

Event Link

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