Law and Society

Led by Associate Professor Helen Rutherford and Associate Professor Jennifer Aston.The event helped members develop their understanding of legal history and how it might assist their research. 

LSA2025 @ Northumbria - papers from Law & Society colleagues that will be presented at the Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in Chicago later in May:

Tues 13th May at 12:00

Adam Ramshaw The Margin of Appreciation: A Romantic Solution Looking for an Anglo Saxon Problem

Ana Speed & Laura Coapes An ‘instrument of harm’? Where parental conflict meets armed conflict: a children’s rights focussed analysis of the judicial interpretation of the ‘grave risk of harm’ defence under Article 13(b) of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in situations of war.

Lauren Clayton-Helm & Ana Speed Protection Denied: the perilous state of protection orders when gender-based violence crosses state borders.

LSA2025 @ Northumbria - papers from Law & Society colleagues that will be presented at the Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in Chicago later in May:

Mon 12th May at 11:00

Callum Thomson Don’t Forget About Us: Advocating for an Ethic of Care in Support Provision for Private Law Children Proceedings.

Laura Graham A Tale of Two Courts: An exploration of MA and Others v France, R v Kloubakov, and the challenges of rights litigation for sex workers

Chris Simmonds Problem-Based Learning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Law School Perspective

David Sixsmith Mediating Clinical Negligence Disputes: Mediator Perspectives on the Role and Influence of the Claimant Lawyer

Tuesday 29th April 12:00 Law & Society: ‘Work in Progress’ seminar

Jennifer Aston ‘Removing ‘the Enjoyment of Her Property’: Coverture, Money, and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857’.

Ashley Lowersen ‘Balancing the Beautiful Game: Football Spectator Behaviour v Rights of Football Clubs in England and Wales’

Assistant Professor Carlos Teruel Fernandez

Carlos delivered a presentation on his research in the transformations in Labour and Social Security Law alongside emerging challenges in the world of work.

“Law’s A Drag” research network Dr Rosie Fox and Dr James Greenwood-Reeves

The Law and Society Research Group welcomed Dr Rosie Fox and Dr James Greenwood-Reeves to the Law School on 28 March.

Rosie and James are lecturers at the University of Leeds. They run the “Law’s A Drag” research network, which connects drag artists and academics, empowers and amplifies the voices of drag artists in drag-and-law related research, and seeks to connect meaningfully with drag artists and curate areas of research that are important to them and their experiences of law.

Dr Elisabeth Griffiths 'A History of Disability Rights'

In 2025 we celebrate 30 years of disability rights legislation in equality law in the UK. This talk, originally done for the disability network at Clifford Chance on behalf of the Law Society’s Disabled Solicitors Network during Disability History month, will give an overview of how we got to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. It will move through the early days of ‘protection’ and ‘support’ post WWII, political activism to protest. The discussion will end by looking to the future of disability rights.

Mon 24th March 12:00 Law & Society: ‘Work in Progress’ seminar

Ross Fletcher ‘A Silence Profound: What Can We Learn From The Strange Case Of Christie v Davey [1893] 1. Ch.316?’

Delphine Defossez 'Is there a need for an international convention on passenger rights?'

Tony Storey ‘Crime in the metaverse: applying real world legislation to the virtual world’.

Paul McKeown and Sarah Morse will discuss their Innovation Fund bid

Jennifer Aston will discuss her ESRC bid, and

Lars Waldorf will discuss his AHRC bids.

We are very pleased to welcome Professor Rachael Walsh, Co-Editor of Legal Studies who will join us online.

Legal Studies is the journal of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS). It publishes a varied range of articles across all legal scholarship in each issue, including doctrinal, conceptual and socio-legal analyses.

Thurs 6th March 13:00 Meet the Editor - Feminist Legal Studies

We are very pleased to welcome Professor Nikki Godden Rasul, Editor of Feminist Legal Studies.

Feminist Legal Studies is committed to an international perspective and to the promotion of feminist work in all areas of law, legal theory and legal practice. The journal publishes material in a range of formats, including articles, essay reviews, interviews, book reviews and notes on recent legal developments.

The seminar will involve a roundtable discussion comprising Lauren Clayton-Helm, Charlotte Emmett, Laura Graham and Adam Ramshaw discussing their successful bids for funding from the Modern Law Review Seminar fund and the SLS Small Projects and Events Fund.

The Law and Society Research Group will be welcoming Dr Brian Barry to the Law School on 4 March at 12.00. Barry will be talking about his work in AI, interdisciplinary research, funding, and external engagement.

Helen Rutherford launches History of Newcastle Prison book and exhibition

Helen Rutherford has co-authored, with Shane McCorristine (Newcastle), Patrick Low (historian and film maker) Clare Sandford-Couch (Leeds Beckett), a book on the History of the Prison to commemorate its demolition one hundred years ago in 1825. Together they also curated an exhibition on the History Newcastle Prison at Newcastle City Library. You cvan purchase the book here.

Helen Rutherford’s research quoted in 'Forensic Science in England and Wales: Pulling Out of the Graveyard Spiral'

Research carried out by Clare Sandford-Couch (Leeds Law School, Leeds Beckett) and Helen Rutherford, ‘”13 yards off the big gate and 37 yards up the West Walls”. Crime scene investigation in mid-nineteenth century Newcastle-upon-Tyne.' in Alison Adam (ed), Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850 (Palgrave, 2019) was quoted in The Report of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice- Westminster Commission on Forensic Science: Forensic Science in England and Wales: Pulling Out of the Graveyard Spiral'.

Recordings of Helen Rutherford and Jacky Smart’s Legal History in Unexpected Places now online

The presentations that Helen Rutherford and Jacky Smart gave to the OU conference on Legal History in Unexpected Places are now online as part of the set of presentations from the conference. Jacky presented on ‘The Inquest of Emma Goule’ and Helen presented on ‘Biographical Legal History and eBay Serendipity’. You can find them at Numbers 11 and 14, here.

Report on Fantasy Legal Exhibitions: Newcastle Workshop, Summer 2024 and follow-up sessions

Inspired by the Fantasy Legal Exhibitions workshop led by Amanda Perry-Kessaris and Victoria Barnes in London in summer 2023, a Newcastle/Northumbria workshop was held in Summer 2024. The sessions were led by Helen Rutherford, who had attended the original workshop, and included participants Emma Engleby, Vinny Kennedy, Chris Ashford, Elisabeth Griffiths, Jacky Smart, and Lauren Napier. The sessions were supported by the Law and Society Research Group.

Jennifer Aston Wins Second Prize in the Margaret Brazier Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Scholarship

Jen was shortlisted for her book, Deserted wives and economic divorce in 19th Century England and Wales (2024).