Conference: Family Law Reform Now by University of Birmingham: Submit Abstracts by June 14, 2021




If you could change one thing in the family law, what would it be?

Speakers at the FLRN Conference will present and explore ten different answers to this question, showcasing important ideas for family law reform from across academia and legal practice.

Organised in collaboration with the Law Commission, conference proposals will be provided to the Commission as consultation responses for its 14th Programme of Law Reform; as well as feeding into our three day conference and planned collection to follow.

Conference Format

On the first day of the conference (Monday, 13th September) each speaker presents their proposals back-to-back to a general audience in 15 min slots. This will be ‘live streamed’ between 1-6pm, in a virtual format, to a generalist audience. The second and third days of the conference (Tuesday 14th & Wednesday 15th September) will narrow to full day round-table scrutiny of each proposal in turn, led by nominated respondents. The round-table sessions will be hybrid, allowing participants to attend in person (University of Birmingham) or virtually as they prefer.

Call for Abstracts

If you would like to be one of the speakers, please send to Dr Charlotte Bendall (c.l.bendall@bham.ac.uk ) your abstract of c.250 words, outlining the reform proposal that you would like to present. The deadline for abstracts is Monday 14th June 2021. We are keen to attract a diverse range of speakers in terms of demographic, career stage, and proposal type, so please do not hesitate in submitting your ideas. We will come back to you in mid June to confirm our final line-up.

Commitment:

When submitting an abstract for consideration, please note the following commitments on acceptance:

  • Pre-conference Briefs: Speakers will provide a ‘conference brief’ for their proposal – c.2000 words – by 16th July 2021. The briefs will be collated and submitted by us to the Law Commission to meet their July consultation deadline. They will also be used for the conference; pre-circulated to round- table participants and respondents.
  • Conference Dates: We expect all speakers to be available for first day of the conference on the 13th September (between 1-6pm), and at least one day of the roundtable sessions on the 14th -15th September (between 10-4pm).
  • Edited Collection: Following the conference, we will bring the proposals (and responses) together into an edited collection with Hart – subject to finalisation of the contract. We will ask speakers to develop their proposals into book chapters (c.8-10,000 words) by September 2022.

Please contact Dr Charlotte Bendall (c.l.bendall@bham.ac.uk ) with any questions. Note that a similar conference will be hosted at the University of Birmingham by our colleague Dr John Child exploring Criminal Law Reform Now. Dr Child also hosted a similar conference (see here) with the Law Commission for its 13th Programme in 2016, and the materials from this may help to explain what this type of conference has previously achieved. See too the edited collection which resulted from the Conference (here).