2021 ALAA Conference

***UPDATE: 23 JUNE – Conference will be held virtually, with all in-person events cancelled due to current COVID restrictions ***

Sunday 4 July – Tuesday 6 July 2021

Conference theme: Boldly Academic: Defining, Supporting and Celebrating Legal Scholarship

#ALAA2021

The ALAA conference is jointly hosted by The University of Sydney Law School and University of Technology Sydney Law Faculty.

The conference will be held virtually.

The theme of the Conference has been chosen to enable exploration and celebration of legal scholarship and the role of the academic.

“Legal academics are not failed practitioners or wannabe sociologists. Law schools are not adjuncts to the profession. Legal teachers and researchers have made and continue to make significant contributions to the law, the legal profession, the community and society at large. The 2021 ALAA conference will celebrate these contributions. We will explore the role of legal scholars and the legal academy in the 21st century; identify and commemorate the heroes of legal scholarship; examine ways to better define, measure and support legal research; celebrate innovation within Australasian law teaching and scholarship; and identify strategies for supporting academic wellness, professional development and career success”.

Keynote speaker: The Honourable Justice Sarah Derrington, President, Australian Law Reform Commission

The Honourable Justice Sarah Derrington was appointed President of the Australian Law Reform Commission and a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia from 10 January 2018.

Prior to her appointment, Justice Derrington was the Dean of Law at the University of Queensland and a barrister specialising in maritime and shipping law, general commercial law and arbitration.

Justice Derrington is a Director of the Australian Maritime College (AMC), the Commonwealth’s Admiralty Rules Committee, the Council of the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) and is a Fellow of the Nautical Institute and of the Australian Academy of Law. She served as a Director of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) from 2012 until December 2017 and is a past President of the Maritime Law Association of Australia and New Zealand (MLAANZ). She was elected as a Titular Member of the Comité Maritime International in 2016.

Conference theme

The conference theme is a broad one, but sub-theme areas may include:

• Why legal scholarship matters
• The future of legal scholarship in a neoliberal higher education environment
• Problematising Western hegemony in contemporary legal scholarship
• Indigenous perspectives on legal scholarship
• The relationship between legal scholarship and impact
• The role of the law school in the 21^st century
• Teaching and scholarship in a post-COVID world
• The relationship between scholarship and legal education and the tension between knowledge and skills
• Legal scholars we admire and their influence
• The contemporary relevance of the ‘great man’ approach to legal scholarship
• ALAA interest groups are encouraged to propose sub-themes relating to their interest group focus
• Other

Conference program

View final program here (updated 5/7/21)

Registration

Online fee: $100

Register here

Tickets to the general public will close on 2 July