Call for Papers 2024

3 – 5 September 2024,
University of Bristol

CALL FOR PAPERS

Call for Papers 2024

The 2024 Society of Legal Scholars’ Annual Conference is to be held at the University of Bristol, from Tuesday 3 to Thursday 5 September. This will be an in person event, with the chance to view the plenaries, and sessions virtually live or on-demand.

All speakers will be required to present in person. However, we will also endeavour to allow speakers unable to attend at the last minute due to ill-health or travel restrictions to present virtually. Please ensure you make a note of this when submitting your paper.

Those presenting do not need to be members of the Society, although we encourage those eligible to be members to join.  The Best Paper Prize and Best Paper Prize by a Doctoral Student at the Conference are only open to fully-paid-up members. For more information on becoming a member visit the SLS website.

The allocation of subject sections between the two halves of the 2024 conference is as follows:

Subject Sections at the University of Bristol – #SLSBristol24

Section A:
Tuesday 3 & Wednesday 4 September

Section B:
Wednesday 4 & Thursday 5 September

Comparative Law

Banking & Financial Services Law
Company Law
Contract, Commercial & Consumer Law
Conflict of Laws

Criminal Law and Criminal Justice

Energy Law
Cyberlaw
Health Law
Environmental Law
Intellectual Property
EU & Competition Law
International Law
Family Law
Labour Law
Human Rights
Legal History
Jurisprudence

Media & Communications Law 

Legal Education
Migration and Asylum
Property & Trusts
Practice, Profession and Ethics
Torts
Public Law
Tax Law

Public Law

Restitution

Section A:
Tuesday 3 & Wednesday 4 September

Comparative Law

Company Law
Conflict of Laws
Energy Law
Health Law
Intellectual Property
International Law
Labour Law
Legal History

Media & Communications Law 

Migration and Asylum
Practice, Profession and Ethics
Public Law

Section B:
Wednesday 4 & Thursday 5 September

Banking & Financial Services Law
Contract, Commercial & Consumer Law

Criminal Law and Criminal Justice

Cyberlaw
Environmental Law
EU & Competition Law
Family Law
Human Rights
Jurisprudence
Legal Education
Property & Trusts
Torts
Tax Law
Restitution

The theme of the 2024 SLS Conference is Learning from Others: Lessons for Legal Scholars? As scholars, we interact with others – students; fellow academics; legal practitioners; the wider public – and the 2024 conference will reflect on the gains we can achieve from such interaction in a global academic environment.  The conference will examine this theme in two ways.  First, as scholars attending the SLS conference, we benefit greatly from meeting colleagues from different backgrounds and disciplines and, notably, from other legal jurisdictions (both within and outside the common law world).  What can we gain from taking an international or comparative perspective to our work?  To what extent do different perspectives, such as socio-legal, interdisciplinary or historical viewpoints, assist our research?

Secondly, one of the significant elements of the conference is the inclusion of papers from both junior and senior scholars. What lessons can we gain from each other, both in terms of mentoring and in recognising the need to promote the interests of early career legal scholars and offering support for those entering the academy?   No scholar is an island. 

The SLS provides a positive inclusive environment for legal academics at whatever stage of their career to engage with each other and learn valuable lessons from a diverse and inclusive community of legal scholars. Doctoral students are very welcome and are encouraged to submit papers for consideration in the Subject Sections Programme.

If you are interested in delivering a paper or organising a panel, please submit your paper abstract or panel details by 11:59pm UK time on Wednesday 3 April 2024.

All abstracts and panel details must be submitted through the Oxford Abstracts conference system which can be accessed using the button below – and following the instructions (select ‘Track’ for the relevant subject section).

If you registered for Oxford Abstracts for last year’s conference, please ensure that you use the same e-mail address this year if that address remains current. For those whose papers are accepted, the original submission offers the facility to upload a full paper nearer the time but is not mandatory. If you are submitting as part of the Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung there will be a tick box option for you to select as you complete the form.

Those wishing to present a paper should submit a title and abstract of around 300 words. Those wishing to propose a panel should submit a document outlining the theme and rationale for the panel and the names of the proposed speakers (who must have agreed to participate) and their abstracts. Sessions are 90 minutes in length and we recommend panels of a maximum of three speakers, though the conference organisers reserve the right to add speakers to panels in the interest of balance and diversity.

As the SLS is keen to ensure that as many members with good quality papers as possible can present, we discourage speakers from presenting more than one paper at the conference. When you submit an abstract via Oxford Abstracts you will be asked to note if you are also responding to calls for papers or panels from other sections.

After the call for papers close, there is extensive liaison between convenors and the Subject Sections Secretary to try to ensure that papers of sufficient quality can be accommodated within the programme, even if in a different subject section from that to which the paper was originally submitted.

Decisions on papers and proposals being included in the programme will be released by the end of April 2024. All speakers will then need to book and pay to attend the conference and will have to register for the conference by Friday 14 June 2024 (more information on ticket prices is available here) to secure their place within the programme.

This year we will also continue to offer support for attendance via our Additional Support Fund. Those with special circumstances or in financial hardship warranting additional support may apply. Priority will be given to applicants who have no other source of funding.

If you do have any queries on the call for papers, please email Sarah Byrne on slsconference@mosaicevents.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1904 702165.

Please contact the Secretariat:

SLS 2024 Conference Secretariat
c/o Mosaic Events
Tower House
Mill Lane
Askham Bryan
York
YO23 3FS

Tel +44 (0) 1904 702165

Email: SLSconference@mosaicevents.co.uk

Please note the SLS Treasurer and SLS web team are unable to answer questions relating to the conference.

Contact us: