Year
2010
Institution
Northumbria University
Job Title
Associate Dean for undergraduate and clinical programmes
National Teaching Fellow 2010
Kevin is responsible for the School's wide range of law degree programmes including its internet-based open learning course which has students all over the world, the innovative Exempting Law Degree which integrates academic and professional legal education, and the M Law Solicitor degree, the first-ever law degree which includes the training stage of qualification as a solicitor.
Kevin is certainly not an ivory tower academic. For 17 years he has made professional legal practice central to his university teaching and scholarship. As a criminal law solicitor he represents clients at all levels from the Magistrates' Court to the European Court of Human Rights. He passionately believes students should learn not just by reading but also by doing and regards real client representation as the core of his students' enthusiasm for their studies. He has thus helped build one of the leading law clinics in the world, the Student Law Office. His team of 19 lawyers supervise 180 students providing a pro bono legal service for members of the public. Students draw on their knowledge of the law and legal skills to offer a full representation service for clients. They conduct interviews, do legal research, draft documents, negotiate settlements, issue court proceedings and appear in courts and tribunals to advocate their client's case.
Kevin's own students represent convicted prisoners who feel they are victims of miscarriages of justice. He routinely takes groups of students to the local high security prison to interview clients and build a case to take to the Criminal Cases Review Commission or Court of Appeal. Highlights of their work include the quashing of the conviction of man who served an eight-year sentence for robbery and the subsequent obtaining of compensation on his behalf.
As editor of the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Kevin enables global dissemination of scholarship relating to legal education through experience. He organises conferences and other events which bring together practitioner academics from all over the world to debate the latest thinking in legal education.