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Birkbeck Judicial Conversations

These occasional events bring together leading judicial figures, scholars and students, to generate dialogue between the judiciary and scholars and to promote understanding of judicial practice and scholarship.

Browse our future events.

February 2016 

Hilary Heilbron QC, in conversation with Ruth Herz about her biography of her mother, Rose Heilbron, the first female QC and one of the first women to be appointed a High Court judge. 

January 2016

Adam Mars-Jones, in conversation with Ruth Herz about his memoir of his father, the High Court judge, Sir William Mars-Jones. 

October 2014

Niilo Jääskinen, Advocate General of the European Court of Justice: 'What do we have the right to know? The case law of the European Court on fundamental rights in the age of the Internet'. 

November 2013

Mr Justice Cranston: 'The art of judgment'. 

October 2013

Isobel Williams who discussed drawing the UK Supreme Court. 

June 2012

Lord Justice Etherton on the art of writing judgments. 

Previous speakers and talks 

In previous years, we've hosted: 

  • The Honourable Justice Edwin Cameron of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, in conversation with Lady Justice Mary Arden 
  • Sir Terence Etherton, Lord Justice of Appeal: 'Reason, Revelation and Discrimination' 
  • Dame Mary Arden, Lady Justice of the English Court of Appeal 
  • Sir John Dyson and Sir Stephen Sedley, both Lord Justices of the Court of Appeal 
  • The Honourable Michael Kirby, recently retired Justice of the High Court of Australia 
  • Ruth Herz, a retired judge who, from 1974, served as a judge in a youth court in Cologne and, from 2001 to 2005, was the judge on a German reality TV show, 'Youth Court' 
  • Judge Takeshita of the Shizuoka District and Family Court, Japan.