Law School

The Hamlyn Lectures

Hamlyn Lectures are normally delivered in the autumn and the annual Hamlyn Seminar, which marks the publication of the lecture, is usually held in London in the following spring.

The second and third lectures will be delivered by Professor Richard Moorhead in Leeds on 6 November and at UCL on 13 November.

Details of past lectures are stored in our Hamlyn lectures archive.

Published annual volumes of the lectures can be found on the Cambridge University Press website

2024

The 2024 Hamlyn lectures are underway and being delivered by Professor Richard Moorhead, Professor of Law and Professional Ethics. The first was held at the University of Exeter, with the second and third will follow at University of Leeds and UCL in November.

Lecture 1:

Unreliable gods and their fearless logics: what drives ethical error? 

30 October, University of Exeter

Chair: Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC, FBA

Recording available here: https://youtu.be/i7DXnrmUCQQ

This lecture considered what drives good lawyers towards ethical failures. It examined traditional notions of lawyers’ ethics, ideas such as fearlessness, zeal and Cab Rank neutrality, along with the human frailties that all humans, even – perhaps especially – lawyers face. It showed how such ideas can drive lawyers towards disaster, drawing on examples from the Post Office Scandal and elsewhere. It concluded that these traditional notions of ethics are flawed; that rather than protect the rule of law, they render it vulnerable.

OVERVIEW OF THE 2024 LECTURES:

"Frail Professionalism: Lawyers’ ethics after the Post Office and other cases"

The Post Office Scandal has alerted the nation to trouble in the legal world and the profession to problems in its ranks.

To those more accustomed to looking at lawyers’ ethics, the problems are less surprising. They suggest bad decisions of course, taken by bad people sometimes, but also bad systems and cultures too. The consequences of the Scandal were unparalleled for those who owned and worked in Post Offices and their families, but the problems that were exposed with the lawyers were unsurprising, ugly manifestations of a certain kind of professional orthodoxy. We see a clue about how important those problems are in the way they spread so widely across all segments of the legal professions, junior and senior lawyers, in-house and independent practice, barristers and solicitors.

These lectures will argue it is time to change the way lawyers think and behave, and how courts, clients, and regulators set their expectations. As well as fair and rigorous enforcement, the intellectual frameworks of lawyers need refreshing, and the institutions they work within strengthening.

Lecture 2:

Extraordinary orthodoxies and legality illusions: How legal logics can pollute institutions. 

6 November, University of Leeds

Chair: Paul Gilbert

Register via this link

This lecture shifts the focus from the individual to their institutional contexts. Lawyers operate in organisations, and within courts, nurtured on the cultures of litigation, that can reinforce each other's vulnerabilities, giving rise to ‘extraordinary orthodoxies’ that can pollute sensible and just decision-making driving cover-ups and false narratives. Such orthodoxies are morally loaded, pathologically tactical, and explain many of the actions of lawyers in the Post Office Scandals and other cases. The idea that these orthodoxies culminate in the creation of legality illusions will be developed to illustrate the need for a richer but simpler, socially meaningful notion of professional ethics that can have practical traction.

Lecture 3:

Lucidity, morality and accountabilities: The routes back to proper professionalism?

13 November, UCL

Chair: James Arbuthnot, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, PC

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This lecture will suggest potential routes to invigorating lawyers’ ethics. It will suggest reframing professional thinking so that lucid, practical, meaningful instantiations of integrity and independence match client loyalty. It will ask, does good judgment (and indeed the law) demand a place for morality in professional decision-making? And if so, what kind of morality? And how should uncertainty and risk be managed proportionately and without paternalism. An agenda for professional rule changes, regulatory practice, education, the courts, professional privilege and corporate governance is suggested by the orthodoxies the Post Office Scandal reveals; its victims demand our attention, and this lecture will propose ideas for action.

2023

Portrait painting of Lord Thomas wearing judicial robes and in a seated position

Laws for a Nation and Laws for Transnational Commerce

The 2023 Hamlyn lectures were delivered by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. The lectures focused on the relationship between law and nations through specific issues of current and longer-term interest: (1) the scope of Welsh law after its re-birth and (2) law used in transnational commerce. The lectures explored the laws that a nation needs and are national in their application and the laws needed for transnational commerce that are best if transnational in their application or agreed as transnational law.
John Thomas practiced at the Commercial Bar in London from 1972. He was appointed to the High Court of England and Wales in 1996. He was a Presiding Judge of the Wales and Chester Circuit 1998-2001 and Judge in Charge of the Commercial Court 2002-3. In 2003, he was appointed to the Court of Appeal and was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales (2013-2017). He is President of the Qatar International Court, an arbitrator and takes part in the business of the House of Lords.  He is Chair of the Steering Committee of the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts, Chair of the Financial Markets Law Committee and President of the London Shipping Law Centre. He was First Vice-President of the European Law Institute 2019-2023. He is Chancellor of Aberystwyth University and President of the Welsh Legal History Society.  He chaired the Welsh Government’s Commission on Justice in Wales (2017-19): Justice in Wales for the People of Wales.

Lecture 1: Law for a Nation - Wales

  • Date: Thursday 5 October
  • Venue: Cardiff University School of Law and Politics
  • Chair: Professor Carwyn Jones
  • Listen to the lecture

Lecture 2: Law for Commerce: English Commercial Law as a System for Transnational Commerce 

  • Date: Wednesday 17 November 2023
  • Venue: Bramall Concert Hall, Birmingham University, Birmingham
  • Chair: Professor Lisa Webley
  • Watch the lecture

Lecture 3: The Development of Transnational Law for Commerce and the Continuing Role of English Law

  • Date: Tuesday 7 November 2023
  • Venue: Guildhall, City of London
  • Chair: Sir David Whooton
  • Listen to the lecture

2022

Courts and the Body Politic

The 2022 Hamlyn lectures were delivered by Professor Catherine O’Regan, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Oxford University.

Lecture 1: The Expanding Role of the Courts

Date: Wednesday 2 November 2022, 18:00-19:00

  • Venue: Moot Court Room, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast
  • Chair: Professor Kieran McEvoy

Lecture 2: Courts and the Executive Branch of Government

Date: Wednesday 9 November 2022, 18:00-19:00

  • Venue: Senate Room, Main Building Glasgow G12 8QQ, Glasgow
  • Chair: Professor Nicole Busby, Professor in Human Rights, Equality and Justice

Lecture 3: Courts and Fundamental Rights

Date: Wednesday 16 November 2022, 17:30-19:00

  • Venue: Sir Joseph Hotung Auditorium, Mansfield College, Oxford
  • Chair: Helen Mountfield KC

2021

Lord Pannick

Advocacy

Delivered by Lord Pannick QC Blackstone Chambers.

Lecture 1: The Essence of Advocacy

Date: Tuesday 9 November 2021, 17:30-18:30

Lecture 2: The Morality of Advocacy

Date: Wednesday 10 November 2021, 18:00-19:00

Lecture 3: The Future of Advocacy

Date: Thursday 11 November 2021, 18:00-19:00

  • Venue: The Law Faculty Building, Gulbenkian Theatre, Oxford
  • Chair: The Rt. Hon. Lord Burrows QC
  • Recording available here (passcode mn6Y3f=h)

 

2020

Eleanor Sharpston

The Great Experiment: Constructing a European Union under the Rule of Law from a Group of Diverse Sovereign States

Delivered by Eleanor Sharpston QC, Advocate General 2006-2020, Court of Justice of the European Union.

Lecture 1: Competing claims to pre-eminence and the lessons of history

  • Date: Thursday 29 October 2020, 18:00-19:00
  • Venue: A online event, hosted by the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh
  • Chair: Rt Hon. Sir David Edward

Recording available below.

Lecture 2: A new start, a new model, a unique challenge

  • Date: Monday 2 November 2020, 18:00-19:00
  • Venue: An online event, hosted by Queen’s University, Belfast
  • Chair: Mr Brian Doherty, previously Solicitor to the devolved government of Northern Ireland

Recording available below.

Lecture 3: Taking stock and looking forward

  • Date: Monday 23 November 2020, 18:00-19:00
  • Venue: An online event, hosted by the Honourable Society of Middle Temple
  • Chair: Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE QC

Recording available below.

Download the Hamlyn Series 2020 flyer‌

2019

John Baker

English Law under two Elizabeths

Delivered by Professor Sir John Baker, Q.C., LL.B., Ph.D. (Lond.), M.A., LL.D. (Cantab.), Hon. LL.D. (Chicago), F.B.A.; Downing Professor Emeritus of the Laws of England in the University of Cambridge

Lecture 1: English Law under Elizabeth I

  • Date: Tuesday 19 November 2019, 17:00-18:00  Drinks reception 18:00
  • Venue: University of Cambridge - LG18, The Sir David Williams Building, 10 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DZ
  • Chair: Professor David Ibbetson, President of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge

Lecture 2: The Age of Common Law and the Age of Statute

  • Date: Thursday 21 November 2019, 18:00-19:00 Drinks reception: 17:00
  • Venue: University of Reading - Palmer Building 1.09, Whiteknights Campus, Reading RG6 6UR
  • Chair: Dr Ian Williams, Faculty of Laws, University College London

Lecture 3: The Elizabethan Inheritance

  • Date: Thursday 28 November 2019, 18:00-19:00
  • Venue: Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House, University of London, WC1E 7HU
  • Chair: The Rt Hon the Lord Judge

Download the Hamlyn Series 2019 flyer‌

2018

Robin Allen

Why does Equality seem so difficult? Three Problems in Comparison

Delivered by Robin Allen QC Co-Head of Cloisters Chambers, Bencher of Middle Temple, Chair of the Equality and Diversity Committee of the Bar Council of England and Wales.

Aristotle said that equal treatment required like situations to be treated alike, and unlike situations differently. Ever since, jurists, politicians and the public have argued over when situations are, and are not, alike.  In the 2018 Hamlyn Lectures Robin Allen QC discusses three aspects of this problem of comparison at the heart of equality law:

Lecture 1: The newest problem: Making a fair comparison across all ages.

Tuesday 23 October 2018 at 5.30pm
Venue: Moot Court Room, School of Law, Main Tower Building, Queen’s University Belfast

Lecture 2: The oldest problem: Establishing equal work.

Tuesday 30 October 2018 at 6pm
Venue: Faculty of Advocates, Laigh Hall, Parliament House, 11 Parliament Square, Edinburgh, EH1 1RQ.

Lecture 3: The most contentious problem: Comparing rights in conflict.

Monday 5 November 2018 at 6pm
Venue: Middle Temple, London EC4Y 9BT

Download Hamlyn Series 2018 flyer‌

2017

Thinking about Statutes:
Interpretation, Interaction, Improvement

Delivered by Professor Andrew Burrows

MA, BCL, LLM (Harvard), QC (Hon), FBA, DCL
Barrister and Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple, Professor of the Law of England and a Fellow of All Souls, University of Oxford

Lecture 1 - Statutory Interpretation

Chair: Baroness Hale of Richmond, President of the UK Supreme Court.

Wednesday 1 November, 17.30-18.30
Venue: Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Law, St Cross Building, University of Oxford, OX1 3UL

Lecture 2 - The Interaction between Common Law and Statute

Chair: Lord Dyson

Thursday 9 November, 18.00-19.00
Venue: Whitworth Hall, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9NR 

Lecture 3 - Improving Statutes

Chair: Elizabeth Gardiner, First Parliamentary Counsel

Wednesday 15 November, 18.00-19.00
Venue: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR

 

Further information

For full information, please download the ‌Hamlyn Series 2017 flyer.

2016

Dame Sian Elias

Golden Threads and Pragmatic Patches: Fairness in Criminal Justice

Delivered by Dame Sian Elias, Chief Justice of New Zealand

Lecture 1 - Fair and Just?"

Chair: The Right Honourable The Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Kt PC QC, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

Tuesday 8 November, 18.00 (17.00 Reception) Venue: Cardiff School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, Law Building, Museum Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3AX


Lecture 2 - Righting Criminal Justice

Chair: Sir Stephen Sedley Former Lord Justice of Appeal

Monday 14 November, 18.00
Venue: The Alumni Auditorium, The Forum, University of Exeter, Streatham Campus, Exeter EX4 4QJ

 

Lecture 3 - The Most Important of all Judicial Functions

Chair: The Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC

Thursday 17th November, 18.00
Venue: Old Hall, The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, London WC2A 3TL

 

Further information

For full information, please download the Hamlyn Series 2016 flyer‌.

2015

The Hamlyn Lectures 2015 were delivered by Professor Michael Freeman under the title A “Magna Carta” for Children? – Rethinking Children’s Rights.

Michael Freeman is Emeritus Professor of English Law at University College London; a Fellow of the British Academy; of Gray’s Inn, Barrister; Fellow of University College London; and Editor of the International Journal of Children’s Rights.

  • Lecture 1: 11 November 2015 (University of Leeds) ‘Are Children Human?’

  • Lecture 2: 18 November 2015 (University of Nottingham) ‘Even Lawyers were Children Once’ 

  • Lecture 3: 25 November 2015 (University College London) ‘A “Magna Carta” for Children?’

2014

Professor Paul Craig

The Hamlyn Lectures 2014 were delivered by Professor Paul Craig.

Paul Craig is Professor of English Law at St John’s College, Oxford. He is the alternate UK member of the Venice Commission on Law and Democracy, an institution within the Council of Europe.

19 November: Lecture 1 - Foundations of UK Administrative Law: The Common Law Method, Values and Constestation

26 November: Lecture 2 - Foundations of Global Administrative Law: Governance, Regulatory Power beyond the State and Administrative Legality

02 December: Lecture 3 - Foundations of EU Administrative Law: Treaty Foundations, Judicial Crea-tivity and the Hierarchy of Norms

Further information

For full information download the Hamlyn Series 2014 flyer.