2026 Allen Hope Southey Memorial Lecture

"Legal Education for the Twenty-First Century" presented by Prof. Birke Haecker

Please note later start time of 6.30pm

A quarter into the twenty-first century, legal education faces a series of questions and challenges. They arise from − inter alia − political developments, technological advances, and an increasing perception of uncertainty about the future. The lecture will address three of the most significant challenges and reflect on how best to meet them.

Firstly, it will consider the extent to which universities should try to instill key democratic values in students, so as to prepare them for bearing professional responsibility towards the legal systems and the societies they serve, and to increase resilience. Secondly, it will ask how legal education ought to respond to the ubiquity and fast-paced evolution of AI. Thirdly, it will show that domestic law is best taught and understood in a wider context.

Comparative awareness, coupled with an ingrained ethos and a sense of purpose and direction, enables aspiring jurists to take charge of future law design and ultimately to steer their legal system’s destiny.

About the presenter

Birke Häcker is Schlegel Professor of Civil Law, Common Law and Comparative Law at the University of Bonn and Director of the Institute of International and Comparative Private Law.

She was previously based at the University of Oxford, holding the Chair in Comparative Law and serving as the Director of the Institute of European and Comparative Law. As someone fully trained in both English and German law, with many years working in and across both jurisdictions, she has extensive experience of different academic environments.

The focus of her teaching and research is on core private law (contract, tort, property and trusts, unjust enrichment), often with a comparative angle. She is particularly interested in the European “civil law/common law divide” as well as the emerging “comparative common law” phenomenon.