The Open Justice Legally Christmas Series 2023

Blog post by Hugh McFaul

The Open Justice Legally Christmas Series has established itself as a much-anticipated seasonal tradition at The OU and I’m very pleased to have been invited back to contribute a review of some Law School highlights from 2023.

2023 has been a bumper year, not least because we celebrated 25 Years of Legal Education at The Open University. The timeline below shows that we started in February 1998 (in partnership with the College of Law), our first in-house module was launched in 2006, followed by an entirely home-grown Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programme in 2014. Since then, we’ve grown to be the largest Law School in Europe and have helped over 60 000 students realise their personal and professional ambitions, including helping to launch the career of the UK’s youngest judge.

As part of these celebrations we hosted the UK Attorney General, Victoria Prentis KC MP spoke about her role as the top legal adviser to the UK Government, her professional background and championing government legal careers. Victoria was very impressed with the students she met and was keen to receive applications from OU Law graduates interested in a legal career with the UK Government.

Our Law students welcome the Attorney General

2023 was another really busy year on the teaching front and we saw great progress with our new undergraduate law degree, which has been very well received by our students. Key milestones included the launch of several new modules covering business, employment, family, evidence, space and environmental law as well as work on our new courses supporting students to prepare for the Solicitors Qualifying Exam.

OULS goes Myth Busting

Given our open mission, a huge amount work has gone into our public engagement activities and providing free learning. A few examples from this year include ‘Search and rescue of refugees at sea’ course funded by the British Academy, a free OpenLearn course on Myths in law which provides the answers if you have ever wondered how much truth there was reflected in your favourite courtroom drama.

BBC / OU TV Series Parole – watch on iPlayer. Image copyright BBC / Raw.

We also worked on several BBC Co-Productions highlighting legal issues including Parole – a five-part documentary series, filmed over the course of one year with Parole Boards from across England and Wales, shows the process involved in hearing prisoners’ parole applications and also, The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland hosted by Kirsty Wark full story here.

2023 brought many successes for OULS colleagues and students in the form of graduations, pupillage scholarships and PhD completions, but particular congratulations are due to our new Professor of Law, Olga Jurasz, who launched Europe’s first Observatory on Online Violence Against Women and to our nominees for the Times Higher Education Awards 2023, Dr Neil Graffin and Louise Taylor.

Finally, the Open Justice Centre Annual Report highlights the huge range of pro bono legal projects the Centre have been developing and delivering over the last year and where you can read more about the Open Justice Criminal Justice Clinic being shortlisted for the ‘Best New Pro Bono Activity’ at the LawWorks and Attorney General Student Awards 2023.

So, our 25th Anniversary Year has provided a huge amount for OULS to celebrate, which is down to the commitment and creativity of our staff and the engagement and hard work of our students, whose achievements often require them to navigate considerable personal and work commitments on top of their studies.

Keep in touch as we progress through 2024.