Law Students for Social Justice

We felt that social justice is a largely underemphasized area of our overall education and as such wanted to create awareness of the adversities faced by marginalized members of society by focusing on the role of the law in protecting and promoting the rights of vulnerable peoples.  Further to this objective, we aimed to inform law students as to the broad scale of possibilities within the area of social justice in which a legal career may be pursued.

In order to achieve these goals we host lectures/forums on particular issues with speakers from the perspectives of non-profit organizations, academics, practicing barristers and solicitors and governmental bodies. Our inaugural event was a two part series focused on domestic violence and forced marriage which saw excellent turnouts and attracted many excellent speakers, including author/academic Jonathan Herring and Jan Salihi of the Ministry of Justice.  This year we turned our attention to human trafficking.  To this end, we have hosted a movie night and a forum, again hosting excellent speakers, including Dr. Ed Bates, Mr. Phil Palmer, both lecturers at the University of Southampton, and Gemma Wolfes from the Anti-Slavery Organization.  As this is the only ethical student group consisting solely of law students, it is our goal to develop and be able to host further events and feature many different topics.  To this end, there are two second year students who have volunteered to take over next year and expand the initiative by becoming a full-fledged society, independent from the Law Society.  If you are interested in taking part in this unique opportunity, please email lssj@soton.ac.uk