Ulster University School of Law

Updated on Oct 20, 2023

Edit

Comment

Head of School Dr Eugene McNamee Owner Ulster University		Staff 30

Focus Legal Education, Research Faculty Faculty of Social Sciences Location Ulster University at Jordanstown Magee College, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

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 Human Resources, Law with Accounting, Law with Sociology, 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 programme.

The School, in cooperation with the Transitional Justice Institute offers masters programmes in Human Rights and Transitional Justice, and Gender, Conflict and Human Rights. The Ulster Law Clinic offers a masters programme in Clinical Legal Education in Jordanstown and Belfast. At the Magee campus the School runs a masters in Commercial Law.

The School has 20 doctoral students, most working with the Transitional Justice Institute or Ulster Law Clinic. The Faculty of Social Sciences Research Graduate School supports all doctoral students in the Faculty.

The School offers several short courses including Law and Business of Film and Television; Copyright and the Information Society, Health Law based at Magee, 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 is the research institute for law at Ulster University and 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.

2008

The Transitional Justice Institute manages the Law submission in the RAE and REF process for Ulster University. In the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) process in 2008, Ulster was ranked 13th out of 64 Law submissions in the UK.

2014

In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework(REF) 2014 Law at Ulster University was ranked 4th overall in the UK (based on GPA). 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 Social Sciences. The School is home to the Ulster Law Clinic. It works closely with the Transitional Justice Institute, one of the Faculty's two research institutes. It also has good links with the Graduate School for Professional Legal Education.

The School was established in 1992.

Ulster Law Clinic

The School has a legal clinic programme. The Ulster 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 Ulster 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 (Team Award) 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 (Cambridge University Press), 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 (2004 and 2007) 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 (2005-2007)

Professor Louise Mallinder was awarded the 2009 Hart SLSA Early Career Award and jointly awarded the 2009 British Society of Criminology Book Prize

Dr Eugene McNamee was awarded the Fulbright Northern Ireland Public Affairs Scholar Award in 2014.

Dr 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 (Dublin) 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