PhD Law and Social Justice

The School of Law is home to the Ulster University Law Clinic (ulster.ac.uklawclinic) – an in-house, public facing law clinic staffed by postgraduate students on the LLM Clinical Legal Education under the supervision of Law School staff. The Clinic is led by Dr Grainne McKeever (member of UK Social Security Advisory Committee) and Dr Esther McGuinness. The Ulster University Law Clinic has established an international reputation for its work in the area of access to justice. It has won several national prizes for its innovative approach to research-driven education and pro bono work, providing free legal advice to the public in social security and employment law. In 2014 the Clinic was nominated for a global Innovating Justice award, on the basis of its strong potential to deliver concrete justice results, and the Head of the Law School was awarded a 2014 Fulbright Public Sector Award to develop the Clinic’s innovative model of meeting unmet legal need through innovative graduate legal education. Clinic staff have secured funding for socio-legal research and have also secured prestigious Department of Justice scholarship funding for the LLM in Clinical Legal Education. Law School and Clinic staff members are especially keen to support research projects in the areas of socio-legal studies, access to justice, social security, employment, and judicial review. The work of the Clinic is underpinned by the research of our PhD researchers working on areas including welfare reform and devolution, children’s rights and special educational needs tribunals, employment law, poverty and the social control of women. Our PhD researchers have published several working papers and peer reviewed publications; secured socio-legal research funding; and won a number of prizes and awards for their work, including the highly prestigious Modern Law Review Scholarship, awarded to Orla Drummond for her research on child participation in special educational needs tribunals. Clinic staff and researchers have been active in their engagement with policy makers, community groups, pro bono networks and the legal professions, and the work of the Clinic and its staff and students continues to have significant influence on access to justice developments in Northern Ireland and beyond.

Applicants should hold, or expect to obtain, a First or Upper Second Class Honours Degree in a subject relevant to the proposed area of study. We may also consider applications from those who hold equivalent qualifications, for example, a Lower Second Class Honours Degree plus a Master’s Degree with Distinction. In exceptional circumstances, the University may consider a portfolio of evidence from applicants who have appropriate professional experience which is equivalent to the learning outcomes of an Honours degree in lieu of academic qualifications.