Ulster University School of Law
The Ulster University's School of Law, is a School of Ulster University which is physically located at the Jordanstown and Magee campuses. Following the results of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 Ulster is ranked fourth for research in law in the UK, and first in Northern Ireland; Ulster was ranked first in the UK in the new "impact" category; and ranked 9th for research intensity.
Academics
The School runs a range of Law degrees at both Magee and Jordanstown campuses. Degrees at Jordanstown include Law; Law with Politics; Law with Criminology; Accounting and Law. Magee degrees include Law, Law with Irish, Law with Accounting, Law with Marketing. All degrees are qualifying law degrees in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland. They can be studied on a full-time or part-time basis. The School offers the possibility for students to study abroad as part of the Erasmus and Study USA programmes.The School at Jordanstown offers masters programmes in Human Rights and Transitional Justice, and Gender, Conflict and Human Rights. The Ulster Law Clinic offers a masters programme in Access to Justice in Belfast, alongside the Law School's offerings in Employment Law and Practice, Corporate Law and Computing and International Commercial Law and ADR.
The School has 20 doctoral researchers, most working with the Transitional Justice Institute or Ulster Law Clinic. The Doctoral College supports all doctoral students in the University.
The School offers several short courses including Law and Technology; Copyright and the Information Society,, Equality Law, and Gender and Transition in Jordanstown.
The Transitional Justice Institute also runs an international summer school on transitional justice every year in June.
Research
The Transitional Justice Institute supports research on transitional justice, conflict, human rights, international law and gender equality. The School also supports research on a range of doctrinal and sociolegal topics, especially access to justice and more broadly law and social justice.Research Ranking
2008
In the Research Assessment Exercise process in 2008, Ulster was ranked 13th out of 64 Law submissions in the UK.2014
In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework 2014 Law at Ulster University was ranked 4th overall in the UK. As a result, 88% of all work was deemed to be "internationally excellent or world leading". Concerning the new impact criterion, Law was ranked 1st in the UK, with 100% of impact rated as world-leading.In addition, 100% of research submitted was given an impact and environment rating of 3* or 4*. As a consequence, Ulster was described as a 'surprise strong-performer' and a 'plucky Northern Irish upstart'.
Governance
The School is run by the Head of School who reports to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences. The School is home to the Ulster Law Clinic, Transitional Justice Institute, and Legal Innovation Centre.The School was established in 1992.
Ulster University Law Clinic
The School has a legal clinic programme. The Ulster University Law Clinic is based in the Belfast campus. It offers free legal advice on social security and employment law. Students from the Clinical Legal Education programme manage the Clinic under staff supervision. The Clinic has won awards for its access to justice work: in 2014 the Law Clinic won the prestigious national award for the best new pro bono activity in the UK. The Law Clinic teaching team was awarded Ulster University’s Distinguished Teaching Fellowship 2014. In 2016 the programme won the GradIreland Postgraduate Law Course of the Year. The Clinic won Ulster University’s Best New Placement ProviderAward 2014. The programme has also been highly commended, being shortlisted for the LawWorks & Attorney General Award 2016, for best pro bono student activity in the UK and
only law school in the UK to receive a nomination for The Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law ‘Justice Innovation’ 2014.
People
- Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin is concurrently the Dorsey & Whitney Chair in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and a professor of law at the University of Ulster's Transitional Justice Institute in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her 2006 book, Law in Times of Crisis, was awarded the Certificate of Merit for creative scholarship in 2007, the American Society of International Law's preeminent prize. She has been nominated twice by the Irish government to the European Court of Human Rights, the first woman and the first academic lawyer to be thus nominated. She was appointed by the Irish Minister of Justice to the Irish Human Rights Commission in 2000 and served until 2005.
- Professor Cath Collins was the Chatham House Research Fellow for Latin America
- Professor Louise Mallinder was awarded the 2009 Hart SLSA Early Career Award and jointly awarded the 2009 British Society of Criminology Book Prize
- Professor Eugene McNamee was awarded the Fulbright Northern Ireland Public Affairs Scholar Award in 2014.
- Professor Gráinne McKeever is on the UK's Social Security Advisory Committee.
- Dr Catherine O'Rourke was awarded the 2010 Basil Chubb Prize for the best PhD produced in any field of politics in an Irish university.
- Dr Venkat Iyer is a member of the Northern Ireland Law Commission.
- Mrs Amanda Zacharopoulou was awarded the University’s Distinguished Teaching and Learning Fellowship in 2011.
- Ulster Law student Duncan McGregor beat more than 5000 undergraduates from across Ireland to be crowned the 2013 gradireland National Student Challenge winner.
- Ulster graduate Mark Bell is Regius Professor of Laws Trinity College Dublin
- Former Head of School Professor Brice Dickson was the first Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission
- Visiting Professor Les Allamby was appointed the fourth Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in 2014