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The pedagogic research undertaken by the School of Law has produced an ambitious and innovative model of clinical legal education: the in-house live client model, which offers a university-based free legal service offering full representation to private clients and NGOs in the form of the Student Law Office. The Student Law Office integrates supervised legal service in the law curriculum, thereby delivering free access to justice to the wider community whilst benefiting the learning environment. Impact is three-fold:
This case study demonstrates that the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) peace process research has substantially impacted on key stakeholders in multiple conflicted and post-conflict states. Impacts include developing sustained relationships with public officials to inform policymaking, making recommendations for legal changes, capacity building with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on peace process issues and addressing conflict-related abuses, informing public debate, and raising awareness of international and comparative legal standards among local judiciaries subsequently applied in their work. Impacts have benefited a range of users and contributed to growing sensitivity to victims' needs in conflict resolution.
Professor Fraser Davidson's research underpinned impact on public policy and law-making in Scotland by enriching and informing the development by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament of a new legal framework for commercial dispute resolution under the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010 ("the 2010 Act"). This Act has the objective of entirely reforming the Scots law of arbitration and establishing Scotland as a major forum for international commercial arbitration, with resultant economic benefits.
Whether assisted dying should be legalised is often treated as an ethical question transcending national boundaries and legal systems. Work in this field is dominated by partisan exhortation by proponents or opponents of legalisation. Professor Lewis's comparative research on legal change on assisted dying highlights the central importance of the choice of legal route in shaping regulatory regimes, evaluates the impact of legalisation on non-voluntary euthanasia (the `slippery slope' argument) and assesses the effectiveness of regulation in permissive jurisdictions. Her critique of the unsatisfactory legal position in the UK coupled with expert interventions, have shaped and informed policy debate, and directly influenced the campaign to legalise assisted suicide and ongoing judicial challenges to the current position. Elsewhere, her work has directly contributed to legal change in Canada and a Bill in Australia.
Research investigating the long-term impact of child contact arrangements in the context of parental separation under the existing law has rapidly and demonstrably impacted upon Parliamentary discussion, policy setting and recommendations by the Children's Commissioner, upon the strategies of cross-disciplinary groups of family justice practitioners who deal with children's issues, and in judicial practice, such that prior presumptions in relation to child contact have altered. Prof. Jane Fortin of the University of Sussex carried out a Nuffield-funded empirical research project between 2010 and 2012, the report of the project, describing the research and providing detailed recommendations, was subsequently published as a book and later dealt with in journal publications.
Before 2008-9 the worldwide Anglican Communion had no global legal framework for its 44 autonomous churches with their 80 million members. Historically, the Communion has been maintained by mutual "bonds of affection" held by members one for another on the basis of shared beliefs. This is changing. The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion were launched at the Lambeth Conference in 2008, while the Anglican Communion Covenant (2009) is currently before each church for ratification. Research by Professor Norman Doe at Cardiff Law School first identified the need for these initiatives and informed his drafting and advocacy of both documents, each providing a framework of `house rules' for the Communion.
The research of Prof Jennifer Temkin on rape myths and stereotypes has influenced the way in which rape trials are conducted and drawn the attention of participants in the criminal trial process to the dangers of stereotyping victims and defendants.
The effects of Temkin's research include:
Of the 200,000 offenders supervised in the community by Probation Area Trusts (PATs) in England and Wales, around half are reconvicted of another offence within two years. University of Sheffield research into why people stop offending (`desistance'), funded by the ESRC and the Leverhulme Trust, has provided evidence to senior staff in PATs, government departments, and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) enabling the development of initiatives aimed at supporting service users in their efforts to desist. The research has increased awareness and understanding on the part of professionals of the factors associated with desistance. Through the medium of a film about how people desist, the research has helped both to reinvigorate probation services' professional practice and to develop training programmes with an emphasis on helping people to stop offending in place of the hitherto dominant focus on enforcement.
Wells' research on corporate liability led to direct changes to UK law in the Bribery Act 2010 and has begun to have significant impact internationally. UK law now complies with the 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Significant changes were made after Parliamentary scrutiny of the draft Bill, as a result of Wells' intervention, which have a major effect on all corporations, including multinationals, demonstrating the international reach and significance of this law. Her work has had further international reach and significance on the development of the OECD's Anti-Corruption Initiative and on the International Bar Association's Task Force (IBAHRI) on Tax Havens, Poverty and Human Rights.
Research undertaken by Barlow at Exeter into cohabitation, marriage and the law has shaped, informed and influenced long-running public and policy debates in Britain over the need to reform aspects of family (property) law, in light of widespread public confusion and on-going societal shifts. The research findings on attitudes to cohabitation and marriage, community of property and pre-nuptial agreements and the law, each cited in public consultation papers and reports advocating reform, have influenced the Law Commission and judiciary in the UK and informed German policymakers. The cohabitation research in particular has-