Law School Bulletin November 2023

Welcome to our November bulletin. 

As we approach the final weeks of another incredible term, I wanted to extend my heartfelt congratulations to you for your dedication and hard work. Your contributions have made this term memorable and enriching for everyone in our Law School community.

At this point of the term it is always worth reflecting on your accomplishments, so take a moment to appreciate the friendships made, the knowledge gained, and the personal growth you have experienced. Each one of you has played a vital role in creating a vibrant and supportive learning environment, and for that, I extend my gratitude. Your hard work and engagement has not only elevated your own educational journey but has also contributed to the overall success of our academic community.

Craig Newbery-Jones, Director of Education and Student Experience 

📖Education Matters: Engaging with Formative Feedback

By now you should have engaged in some formative opportunities in your programmes and will have gained feedback from all of your classes. I encourage you to view them as not merely an opportunity to help understand where you are in your academic journey, but as invaluable opportunities for growth.

Take the time to thoroughly engage with the feedback. Recognise that this is a roadmap guiding you towards improvement. Consider it as "feedforward" rather than mere feedback, as it propels you forward into your upcoming summative assessments. Reflect on the areas highlighted for enhancement and use them as stepping stones toward success in your next stage.

Embrace the chance to refine your understanding, skills, and approaches, allowing each formative assessment to serve as a crucial building block in your academic journey. Your commitment to learning from feedback today will undoubtedly shape your achievements tomorrow.

There is more guidance on engaging with feedback in The Law Gateway on ELE.

📢Have Your Say - Meet Emilly Ribeiro De Faria

As the Students' Guild Department Officer for Law, my role within the department focuses on encouraging positive change in the student experience. I work alongside department staff and student representatives in every year group, and together, we represent students’ needs and views by voicing issues and concerns that students may have. Based on the feedback they give us, we can promote solutions to make changes and improvements within our department.

In previous years, we have successfully resolved issues concerning the quality of learning in lectures and seminars, improved accessibility to teaching and inconsistencies that students may have found in lectures and their learning.

Feedback from law students is crucial, and it keeps us going, so we rely on students to communicate any of their concerns to their academic representatives. In this way we can keep prioritising the student voice. Academic representatives can be found here. Alternatively, I am happy to be contacted via email : evr204@exeter.ac.uk

Celebrate!

All School Negotiation Competition Winners 

Congratulations to all students, from across the years, who took part in the Negotiation Competition recently. After a first round and a final, the outright winners were Olivia Eddie and Michelle Vardanega. Coming second were Amy Dundas and Amy Gillyon. Both pairs will now go forward to represent the Law School at CEDR National Negotiation Competition.

Client Interviewing Competition

With support from Magdalen Chambers, Trowers & Hamlin, Stowe Family Law LLP and Foot Anstey LLP, we have been running a school-wide Client Interviewing Competition. The grand final was held at Foot Anstey LLP's Exeter offices this week with a mixture of second and third years taking part: Nina Dobinson, Carl West, Ezra Woodman, Shreya Srinivasan, Marilee Udsen, Eve Sheasby, Natasha Phillips and Esther Hozzein.

Each pair of students was marked on various criteria including: establishing an effective professional relationship, obtaining information and assisting the client to make an informed choice. The scores were very close, but the highest score went to Marilee Udsen and Eve Sheasby. Huge congratulations!👏 They will now go on to represent the Law School in the National Client Interviewing Competition 2024.

🎧Lasok Lecture: Catch up

Our annual Lasok Lecture was delivered by Christopher Docksey, Honorary Director-General of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) on 8 November. The event is organised each year by our Centre for European Legal Studies(CELS) and named after Dominik Lasok QC (1921-2000), who was Professor of European Law at the Law School for many years and made Exeter a centre of excellence for European law in the early days of the UK's accession to the bloc.

We also welcomed Dominik's son Paul, to introduce this year's lecture. You can hear the lecture and view the slides on this YouTube link. 

📆Opportunities and Events 

Our Opportunities page is where we place a variety of employability events, legal competitions and other items you may find of interest. The page is updated regularly with new ones. You can link to it via our Linktree. 

📆Events: David Yuratich

Reminder: ✒️Royal Literary Fellow 

Exeter Law School has the privilege of hosting a Royal Literary Fund (RLF) Fellow. Christopher Wakling is a professional writer and editor, whose role is to help students improve their academic writing skills.

Christopher offers one-to-one academic writing tutorials in person and online. Sessions last up to 50 minutes, are free and confidential. You can focus on any aspects of your written communication.

Email Christopher directly to get further details and book a session.

🕺Our Centenary Ball💃

On 7 December 2023, the Law School will officially reach the grand age of 100! As our Centenary date draws ever closer, academics and students have been working hard to connect more strongly with our alumni and bring them into our Law community.

Last Friday we held our Centenary Ball where students, staff and alumni joined together to commemorate 100 years of Exeter Law. It was wonderful to see Law students and staff from the 1960s to the present day coming together to raise a toast to the next 100 years. There is more to come on our Centenary, so watch this space!

The Centenary Ball was also a great opportunity for us to recognise the contribution of Exeter Law alumnus Steve Edge (Law 1972). Steve, who spent most of his legal career as a Partner in Slaughter & May specialising in tax law, has been incredibly supportive of the Law School and other parts of the University for many years. At the Centenary Ball, we recognised Steve's unwavering support with the Outstanding Contribution to Exeter Law School Award.

Wellbeing, Inclusion and Culture Officer: David Barrett

Hello from David Barrett:

I am one of the two Wellbeing, Inclusion and Culture (WIC) Officers for the Law School (Dr Annika Jones being the other officer). I am focusing on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) from the perspective of students. I have been meeting with student representatives to gather information on EDI. Together we are developing actions to improve EDI in the Law School. In September's edition I wrote about Preferred names and Pronouns(which I've added again) but this month I wanted to highlight one other important aspect, your wellbeing.

Wellbeing

Personal wellbeing can be enhanced by taking five steps: 1. Connecting with others; 2. Being physically active; 3. Paying attention to the present moment; 4. Learning new skills; and 5. Giving to others. More information about wellbeing and sources available to support you can be found here.

Preferred names

If you prefer to go by a name other than your legal name it is possible to check and update your preferred name using this link (n.b. you will need to enter your university username and password). Your preferred name will then appear on registers and be used by tutors in the Law School.

Pronouns

The University encourages everyone to add their pronouns to their email signature. This is to ensure that all individuals are correctly identified. Guidance on pronouns and how to add them to outlook can be found here and how to update your signature to include pronouns can be found here.

If you have any questions or want to discuss EDI with me at any point please do get in touch (d.barrett@exeter.ac.uk).

🎁Festive Legal Learning! 🤶 

🎧Learning with your Ears: Career Zone Law Podcast  

📣 ✨ The fifth episode of the law mini-series podcast has been released ✨ 📣

Rachel Gaunt talks to Dr. Gordon Christian, Principal Counsel Competition at Siemens Energy. Tune in to hear:

• Gordon’s experiences of studying and working in a different country
• Completing a PhD
• Experiences of working in private practice compared to in-house
• The transition from working in the UK to Germany
• General tips on studying and securing employment in the legal sector

🤳 Law School Socials 😍​​​​

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER LAW SCHOOL

If you would like to see previous editions of the bulletin, they sit on our WordPress site here.  And if you have any suggestions for future editions, or would like to share a story with us, please email lawcomms@exeter.ac.uk. Fin