Socio-Legal Studies Association

The first annual general meeting of the Socio-Legal Studies Association was in Bristol in the United Kingdom in 1990. At the time of its foundation, the largest organization for academic lawyers in the United Kingdom was the Society of Public Teachers of Law (now the Society of Legal Scholars), which was largely focused on doctrinal work. The Association was founded to help foster the already burgeoning sociolegal studies movement in the United Kingdom. From the start, the Association defined sociolegal studies broadly. The Association's present statement of ethical practice states: “Socio-legal studies embraces disciplines and subjects concerned with law as a social institution, with the social effects of law, legal processes, institutions and services and with the influence of social, political and economic factors in the law and legal institutions. Socio-legal research is diverse, covering a range of theoretical perspectives and a wide variety of empirical research and methodologies” (Selwood 2005: xxv). The width of this definition means that the Association has encompassed those in law, social sciences, and humanities in both its membership and its conferences.

One of the principal activities of the Association has been the creation of an annual conference, which is now one of the two biggest conferences for academic lawyers in the United Kingdom. It normally attracts in excess of 300 participants. The annual conference is a general conference covering all the various areas of sociolegal studies. The Association has a newsletter, published three times a year, a Web site, and an annual research directory of members. It provides one-day conferences and seminars and a small grants scheme. The Association sets up one-day conferences and seminars on an ad hoc basis to look at particular issues. In addition to these activities, the Association also lobbies a wide range of bodies on issues relating to sociolegal studies.

The Association in 2006 has 639 members of whom 45 are overseas members. By comparison, the membership of the Society of Legal Scholars is 2,600. However, the influence of the Association is disproportionate to its relative size. Thus, for example, seven out of the fourteen members of the law subpanel for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for United Kingdom universities are members of the Association, as is the chair of the main panel to which that subpanel reports.

Numbers attending the annual conferences of the Association and the Society of Legal Scholars are approximately the same. Most members of the Association are academics in law schools, reflecting the nature of sociolegal activity in the United Kingdom, but some are from other academic disciplines, including one member of the Executive Committee. The Association places a strong emphasis on postgraduate activity, evidenced by the 189 members who are postgraduate students. There is a postgraduate representative on the Executive Committee, which runs an annual, heavily subsidized postgraduate conference.