TGI Friday

Just back from a day in London at a one day conference organised by three enterprising PhD students at Queen Mary. The theme was "Legal academics: Spectators or Players?" and the organisers had got a really interesting group of people together to discuss the role of legal academics and their relationship with legal practice. It could all have been a bit of a non-event, but as it was it was one of those days where the synergies worked and it sparked all sorts of interesting research and policy questions, much of it around the role of legal education in this relationship. I hope it leads on to some real outputs; it would be a shame to waste all that energy!

Its just as well it was an energising day as the batteries here are running pretty low. Its been a busy summer at the end of a long year. I've been working hard on about three different writing projects, as well as trying to keep on top of my work for the Centre and the RAE, so its been pretty much six day weeks since May, with just a week off for hols in August. Not what most people think us academics do with our time, I suspect. Even so there have been good bits. the Warwick RAE is taking shape, I am getting through the writing - if slowly - and UKCLE has just had its annual Advisory Board, and got some great feedback and support from the Board, which is so valuable to the team. Now its all about gearing up for the new academic year which starts in a week's time; I'm teaching a first year undergraduate module this term, for the first time in a long time, and have also taken over the leadership of the LLM Legal Education, and there's still a fair amount to do on both those fronts. But tomorrow, no work!