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.

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.

Subject Sections at the University of Bristol – #SLSBristol24

Section A:
Tuesday 3 & Wednesday 4 September

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?

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 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.

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.