Christmas is almost upon us, and what better way to celebrate than with the Open Justice Advent Calendar 2020?

From Monday 13 December, we’ll be treating you to a daily festive-themed blog. For 12 days, you’ll be able to read seasonal contributions to this very special blog series by seasoned OU lecturers, new OU colleagues, OU students and Open Justice Centre staff.

Highlights in the seasonal series include a Christmas Eve piece in which Open Justice legal advice is offered to Father Christmas, who finds himself at the centre of a worrying elf employment dispute.

Olivia Leeper and Heidi Key are the joint winners of the ‘Outstanding individual contribution to Open Justice’, with Neil Burlinson as runner-up in this year’s awards.

Joint winner – Olivia Leeper

Olivia took part in the Freedom Law Clinic (FLC) project and has been offered a training contract in a law firm in Norfolk. After obtaining an MA in English Literature in 2004, she worked in publishing and the voluntary sector before studying for the LLB while raising her three children. 

The ‘Outstanding team contribution to Open Justice’ saw a group of five win in this year’s awards, with the runners-up part of the Street Law project.

Winners: Rawtenstall pop-up law clinic project – Daniel Doody, Elizabeth Walker, Jack Brown, Kelly Louise Martin and Lilly May Seddon 

Hugh McFaul, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of The Open University’s Open Justice Centre, was highly commended in the Most Innovative Teacher of the Year category at The Times Higher Education (THE) Awards last week. The THE Awards recognised outstanding work and exceptional performance across the higher education sector for 2018-19. 

This report offers a summary of these pro bono and public engagement activities over the past 12 months and outlines their awards and research outputs.

Hugh McFaul has been shortlisted in the Most Innovative Teacher of the Year category in the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2020. The OU has also been shortlisted for University of the Year in the annual awards which are recognising outstanding work and exceptional performance across the higher education sector for 2018-19.

The Open University’s Open Justice Centre and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are continuing their partnership to deliver the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative. E4J has been developed to prevent crime and promote lawfulness – by supplying integrity and ethics education resources for schools, colleges and universities around the world.

Ten students from The Open University’s Open Justice Centre are taking part in a Freedom Law Clinic project exploring race and policing in the UK and the USA.

The project has been launched following recent events in the USA, namely the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and subsequent response. The incident inspired global debate and galvanised people worldwide who believe that the US justice system is racist.

Open Justice has been asked to edit a special issue of the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education on clinical legal education in a pandemic. IJCLE is the pre-eminent international clinical legal education journal. This invitation comes after our successful ‘Taking CLE Online’ webinar and is further recognition of the ground breaking and sector leading work the centre has been doing on making opening up CLE to distance learners.

The Open Justice Centre’s collaboration with the Support Through Court charity on a free open online resource for learners, themed around domestic abuse, has been highlighted in Parliament.

Its timely launch in April coincided with the rapid rise in numbers of people in domestic abuse situations seeking help during the UK lockdown due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.