Research and Scholarship
Bristol Law School is one of the top-rated 'new university' law departments in the country, scoring consistently high ratings in official research assessment exercises, the latest carried out in 2008. This reflects the fact that many staff in the School are engaged in research of national and international significance, much of it at the cutting edge of legal scholarship. Our major research interests lie in the fields of domestic commercial law, comparative law, criminal justice, European law, environmental and planning law, human rights law, insolvency law, legal education and the legal professions, licensing law, public law, public international law and refugee law.
Most of the research activity in the Law Faculty is carried out under the auspices of the Centre for Legal Research. Staff in the Faculty undertake research in all of the main legal research traditions, and are well represented in both the doctrinal research tradition and socio-legal research. They undertake research for a variety of organisations, and recent and current projects have been funded by the Legal Services Commission, the Home Office, the Alcohol Education Research Council, and a number of police forces.
Recent and current research contracts include research for the Legal Aid Board (now the Legal Services Commission) on contracting of criminal defence services, for the Legal Services Commission on the public defender service, for the Alcohol Education Research Council on changes to liquor licensing procedure, and for the Home Office on the social effects of car crime
In addition to books and monographs, staff have recently published in many of the major legal journals including Administrative Law Review, Criminal Law Review, The International Journal of Human Rights, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, International Insolvency Review, The Law Teacher, The Law Quarterly Review, Legal Ethics, Legal Studies, The Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Public Law, The Journal of Social Security Law, and The Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law.
Law School staff are also engaged in many other activities relating to research. These include presenting papers to national and international conferences, acting as visiting lecturers and professors at overseas universities, editing legal journals, and acting as consultants.
Page last updated 3 February 2012