The CLEO Policy Clinic Network is back! We are starting with a session with leading Policy Clinicians, talking about their experience of setting up and running a Policy Clinic. This session will cover what they wish they had known before setting up the Policy Clinic, how to overcome the difficulties, sourcing projects and providing a positive student experience. We also have Luke Johnson, a prior Policy Clinic student, who will outline his experience and what he considered to have contributed to his experience in the Policy Clinic. There will be a Q&A at the end. Bios for each speaker can be seen below.

This free event will take place on 17th May 2022, 11:00-12:00. To sign up, please register through Eventbrite, via: If you are interested in joining the network, please contact Lyndsey Bengtsson via: lyndsey2.bengtsson@northumbria.ac.uk

Speakers

Dr Liz Curran will be taking up an appointment on 6 June 2022 as Associate Professor Clinical Legal Education and School Research Impact Lead NLS. She is Associate Professor, ANU (Hon.); Principal, Curran Consulting: Enhancing Justice & Human Rights. Research: impact measurement, access to justice, multi-disciplinary practice, clinics, community and professional development, effective legal practice & legal professional ethics. Senior Solicitor; Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Liz was nominated for an Excellence in Evaluation Award by The Australasian Society of Evaluators in 2021. Since 2001 she has been involved in establishing clinics, ‘expert’ on clinical program advisories, running clinics, supervising, innovation in clinics and reviewing clinical programs around the world. She sole author of a book, Better Law for a Better World: New approaches to law practice and education published by Routledge in UK in 2021. This includes chapters on effective CLE & policy making. Her research reports and recommendations over many years have been implemented into practice. This includes the adoption of many of her suggestions as recommendations in the Australian Productivity Commission’s ‘Report into Access to Justice’, The Federal Attorney General’s Family Violence Reforms (including Health Justice Partnerships) and the introduction of restorative practice in several youth justice settings.

Relevant to the Policy Clinic CLEO Network, at ANU Liz supervised clinical students on their policy and law reform work and at La Trobe University when CLE Supervisor, Liz developed a program where part of the student assessment included a law reform/ policy project based on their experiences of client casework and students’ identifying systemic problems that the clinic clients confronted. This was the first such program in the world at the time. Students learned skills in relation to research interviewing, university ethics applications, researching, identifying solutions, writing reports and recommendations and liaising with statutory and governmental bodies. This work was the subject of at least 8 peer-reviewed academic articles in a range of journals including: The International Journal of Clinical Legal Education x 4, The Flinders Law Journal, the Law Institute Journal and the Alternative Law Journal and her recent book also examines tips and skills for such clinics. Liz was awarded an Australian Citation for Excellence in Teaching Innovation and Deep Learning by the Federal Government in 2006 for this law reform clinical work.

Liz Hardie, Teaching Director, Open University Law School. Liz is a lecturer and Teaching Director of the Open University Law School, having previously worked as a Student Experience Manager for the Law School since 2010. She has also worked as part of the Open Justice Centre since 2016, supporting law students to carry out pro bono projects both as part of their law degree and on an extra curricular basis. Liz leads the Open Justice online policy clinic and is a supervising solicitor in the online law clinic. She is particularly interested in online learning and the use of technology in legal education, including the moving of clinical legal education online.

Luke Johnson, Northumbria University. Luke Johnson is a 1st Year PhD Student at Northumbria University. He completed his MLaw (Integrated Master’s) degree in the Summer of 2021 after writing his dissertation on the interplay between specialist environmental courts and access to environmental justice in the UK. Under the supervision of Dr Rachel Dunn, Luke engaged in the Policy Clinic within the Student Law Office at Northumbria, where he conducted a sociolegal study into wildlife conservation law. Luke’s doctoral thesis will combine theoretical, empirical, and doctrinal research methods in order to investigate how the nascent crime of Ecocide may be effectively transposed into national law. Alongside his PhD studies, Luke has recently started teaching on the Human Rights and Law Reform module.

Siobhan McConnell, Senior Lecturer, Northumbria University Law School. Siobhan is a lecturer and the Careers and Employability Coordinator for the Law School. Prior to joining Northumbria in 2010, Siobhan was a solicitor specialising in commercial law. Siobhan has worked in the Policy Clinic at Northumbria Law School since its inception in 2018. Siobhan and her students have worked with a range of clients on a variety of research projects, undertaking research in the fields of mental health law, criminal law and LGBTQ+ rights. Siobhan’s own research focuses on law student employability and she is particularly interested in investigating how policy work develops student employability.

Lyndsey Bengtsson, Senior Lecturer, Northumbria University Law School. Lyndsey is a lecturer and Programme Leader for Northumbria’s Legal Practice Course. She has been a qualified solicitor for over 16 years, specialising in employment law. Lyndsey has worked in the Policy Clinic at Northumbria University since 2018 and her students undertake both policy work and live client work under her supervision. Her policy projects have included research into the effectiveness of out of court disposals and access to justice in the online environment. Lyndsey is an active researcher in the field of clinical legal education, looking particularly at the benefit of policy work. She is also interested in researching age discrimination in the workplace.