Feeling seen, feeling the history and feeling the possibilities
I have lost count of the number of Law Schools I have walked into over the years. I have obviously studied in and worked at several. I have visited many many more. But I can count the number of Law Schools I have walked into where the walls have been dominated by portraits or photos of women. Until earlier this month that number was precisely zero. One of my more famous (read public) tantrums came in one of my previous roles where, in a staff meeting, we had agreed that we should brighten up the hallways in the Law School with some law relevant pictures. A week or so after that meeting I arrived at work and pictures of long dead white men adorned the walls and I lost the plot. It was not one of my finest moments but I do think I was right. I am not suggesting that we erase history or that we should ban Law Schools from putting images of dead white men on their walls, I am saying that we should be mindful of whose history we are portraying, who we are championing and what it means if you can or rather if you can’t see yourself reflected in the imagery that the place you are working or studying in chooses to put on the walls.
So when, on the 12th February, I was ushered into a smallish room in the Law Faculty of Lund University alongside a group of academics working on various aspects of EU Law, Policy and Politics for our 2 day workshop, my breath was literally taken away. As I made my way down a few steps, I was facing pictures of 4 women. I had no idea who they were at this point but the impact felt almost physical. The room screamed ‘you belong here’. There we were, mostly female academics being encouraged by those who went before us, those who made us being here possible. The 4 women are Anna Bugge Wicksell (1862-1928), Gunvor Mallin (1911-2010), Anna Christensen (1936 – 2001) and Christina Moëll (1959 -) and they are important and impressive figures in the Swedish legal world. Look them up! The Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon which has biographies of important Swedish Women is a good place to start.
As I took my seat and looked back at the door I had just come through, I noticed a further picture. And this time I did know who the woman looking back at me from inside the frame was: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I think I just stared. As it turns out RBG received an honorary jubilee doctorate from Lund University and the document is framed next to her picture. It was vaguely intimidating to give a paper with such a legal heavyweight, such a trailblazer, such a brilliant woman looking down at me with that iconic look but I hope she would have been proud of us and interested in our discussions.
Having the women on the walls made a difference. It is hard to explain why. Apart from immediately making me feel like I belonged in that room, genuinely. Apart from being in a room with pictures of important people on the walls and for once not having to roll my eyes about the choice of who is important and apart from the complete novelty of it, I don’t know why it made such a difference. It just did. It was nice and over the two days I think we all commented on it.
It made me think about the importance of representation which I have been thinking about lots lately but also about how far we have come since we saw the first female law graduates, the first female lawyers, first female professors, Deans of School… and how far we still have to go. There are still female firsts to be had and that’s before we even start thinking about intersections with other characteristics. But thinking about how much work there is still to do seemed less heavy with the 5 watching over our conversations. There they were, evidence of change and progress, evidence that we belong, that we are capable and important. I like how they are all different, the pictures chosen are not all the same style and they are not super formal either. They somehow felt more real and their roles and positions somehow more attainable. Ok, perhaps not RBG because, you know, she was RBG – but the others were just women doing their thing – just like we were in that workshop. It felt like by being there and by discussing work that had a focus on gender, we were honouring the work they had done, the way they had paved. It felt good to be seen, to see, to begin to understand our histories and think about the possibilities.
Turns out there were also some paintings of men on the walls – they were behind me throughout, I don’t know who they were, I didn’t bother to check. They just didn’t seem important over those two days. They probably are important, but not in this story and not today.
Do what you can, when you can
Well, Christmas is safely packed away in the loft. According to my fitness watch I both finished 2025 and started 2026 strong. Actually, I did no such thing. I finished work on the 19th December, I had a pretty quiet time but it has really taken me until now to feel even remotely rested. I finished 2025 slowly recovering from exhaustion and being at capacity for too long. The first day of 2026 has been the same. With Christmas decorations taken down, the house returned to its normal, though not yet fully cleaned, state, my thoughts turned to going back to work. I go back tomorrow, I suspect many academic friends and colleagues will go back on Monday.
Anyway, I think almost every year I have done some work over the Christmas period. I thought I would this time. I have some writing projects to progress, stuff to do that is nice, fun. though still work. But I didn’t. I didn’t log on at all. I didn’t read anything work related, I didn’t write anything work related and I haven’t really thought about it much at all. Until today. Because now suddenly it feels like I need a plan for tomorrow and that means knowing what needs doing urgently… and so I nearly logged on. And then I gave myself a good telling off that may have included some swear words and ‘idiot’.
Starting back after the break on a Friday is actually perfect. Tomorrow I make the plan, I get things in order and ready for Monday. Preparation for work is work. It can be done in work time. And of course I forgot the key thing, the thing that I try as much as I can to stress to colleagues, PhD students and anyone who will listen really: Nothing in our job is ever actually urgent. Nobody is standing by us bleeding from a major artery, nothing is literally on fire, nobody is in immediate danger. I deal in words on pages, arbitrary deadlines, reports nobody reads… I am not saying that what I do as an academic isn’t important – some of it is – but we put the urgency into the work we do. The work is not inherently urgent. In fact I think that maybe the work would be better if we took any urgency out of it. If we properly slowed down. We need to keep reminding ourselves and each other of that.
Anyway, I have already rambled more than I intended to! I really just wanted to post to wish you a calm, peaceful, creative and kind 2026. I know that in an academic world that is in such a mess, that wish might seem out of reach, ridiculous even, but we have to try. There is hope, there are amazing people working in universities doing amazing things in spite of the conditions we have to survive in. There are people who are actively trying to improve those conditions – on large scales or through tiny acts of solidarity and resistance. Higher Education has lost its way, that doesn’t mean all those within it have. Resistance is exhausting, it takes its toll, demands a price.. whatever cliche you want to throw at it. So this is a sort of rallying cry but it is one that I have been thinking since I used the phrase in a post for my running blog earlier today: Do what you can, when you can. If we all do what we can, when we can to reclaim at least some of what Higher Education can be, maybe we can make some progress and maybe more of us can return to really enjoying our work more of the time.
Happy New year from me and my furry mental health team: Storm, Kilian, Odin and Einstein. Take care of each other.
99 Days of Something – #3 or Society of Legal Scholars Day 1
There was no writing as such do be done today so again the blog is the only writing in my string of writing I am going to do today. Together with the brilliant Dr Kat Langley I convene the Legal Education Subject Section at the Society of Legal Scholars. We had two really good sessions today so here are some of my initial very brief reflections on the contributions.
We started the conference with a brilliant panel of Nick Cartwright, Rita D’Alton-Harrison and Simisayo Olawore on Studying Black in Law School: The intersections of Black Student Life. There was so much in that panel presentation that I am not sure where to start really. We have so much to unpack, think about, challenge if we genuinely want to create inclusive legal education. Hearing from Simisayo about her lived experience as a black female student highlighted really clearly that even when we are trying to be inclusive, our efforts might not be landing how we intend them to. I was thinking about how we get round this issue that presents itself whenever we as experts in a particular field or as educators think that we know what is best or how we can get ideas across. We will always get caught up in the power dynamics of teacher/student that risk silencing some voices, re-enforcing stereotypes or misrepresenting experiences – even with the best of intentions. I think if we genuinely want to tackle this we need to relinquish much more power in the classroom. We need to genuinely listen, co-create, tear down and rebuild our discipline in a way which treats all of our experiences of law as valid and useful starting points for analysis.
In our second session we shifted focus and started with a paper which made me think about how we can use visuals to help us understand and explain complex legal concepts by Tristan Webb. It prompted me to think about how I make sense of complexity. I don’t think I really do visuals. Everything I do is text based in some way. So even my diagrams are text based – more mind map or flow chart than picture. I think in words not in pictures. But that is not helpful for anyone who thinks in pictures rather than in words. So how can I adapt some of my teaching, representations, slides and other materials to help students develop the things, whether its diagrams, pictures, memes, cartoons, objects, whatever it is to help them make sense of the things we are talking about. And seamlessly that linked me to the next presentation about using Lego to help students grapple with contract law doctrine and develop a more nuanced understanding. Marton Ribary and Antony Starza-Allen outlined how they used Lego and a structured series of builds to really get students thinking about the complexities of contract law.
Questions that came up on both of those papers were around how we measure success. How do we know if these things have a tangible impact on student performance. I don’t know the answer to that but I wondered whether we should maybe just stop obsessing about measuring. I wondered if we could just celebrate the fact that students maybe just had fun, that the noise levels in the classroom rose that little bit, that there was more conversation, more laughter, maybe even giggles. Can we just accept that it doesn’t matter if students on average did X% better if they did the thing or used the gimmick or whatever, maybe the increase in the grade is irrelevant. What if what matters is simply that they enjoyed the learning, that they talked to others, collaborated and had fun.
The final paper was a presentation by Dawn Watkins on a game about law for school children and I have more to say on that and no capacity now. It’s time for bed to let me brain do its thing on all of this – more tomorrow
My Conversations 