The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) is a member institute of the

School of Advanced Study The School of Advanced Study (SAS), a postgraduate institution of the University of London, is the UK's national centre for the promotion and facilitation of research in the humanities and social sciences. It was established in 1994 and is ba ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. Founded in 1947, it is a national academic centre of excellence, serving the legal community and universities across the United Kingdom and the world through legal scholarship, facilities, and its comparative law library. The mission of the institute is to be "the focal point of legal research for the United Kingdom and the countries of the

British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...

." Since 1976, the institute's home has been Charles Clore House, located in the heart of Bloomsbury, at 17

Russell Square Russell Square is a large garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, built predominantly by the firm of James Burton. It is near the University of London's main buildings and the British Museum. Almost exactly square, to the ...

History

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies was established in 1947 in response to recommendations made in 1932 by

Lord Atkin James Richard Atkin, Baron Atkin, (28 November 1867 – 25 June 1944), commonly known as Dick Atkin, was an Australian-born British judge, who served as a lord of appeal in ordinary from 1928 until his death in 1944. He is especially remember ...

that the United Kingdom needed an institution "which would be a headquarters for academic research and would promote the advancement of knowledge of the law in the most general terms." On 11 June 1948, the institute was officially opened by the

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...

William Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt William Allen Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt, (15 April 1885 – 16 August 1957) was a British Liberal Party, National Labour and then Labour Party politician and lawyer who served as Lord Chancellor under Clement Attlee from 1945 to 1951. Backgro ...

. The first director was Professor Sir David Hughes Parry, a distinguished Professor of English Law at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

and for many years Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. The Librarian, K. Howard Drake also acted as administrative secretary for the institute. Housed at 25

, the institute occupied all floors of the building, the ground and first floors reserved for the library with rooms on the second and third converted into offices or study/seminar rooms. The library held 11,000 books in its first year, a substantial number donated by Dr. Charles Huberich. An internal telephone system connected all the rooms with a hand book lift installed to move books from floor to floor. By 1949, the institute was running out of space and were given permission to extend into the basement and ground floor 26

. Here it remained until 1976, when the institute moved into No. 17

, part of the newly built Charles Clore House designed by Sir Denys Lasdun. At the official opening on 1 April 1976, the then Chancellor of the University of London,

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...

, overstayed and her official schedule had to be abandoned. In 1994, the IALS became a member of the

. A five-year refurbishment of Charles Clore House is currently underway, the first phase of which was completed in September 2012, incorporating a larger café and improved lecture facilities on the ground floor.

Library

Collections

Institute of Advanced Legal Studies - Senate House History Day 2019

The IALS library holds a collection of over 300,000 legal texts, complemented by over 3,000 current serial titles, reports, and legislative materials. It has been described as the "jewel in the Institute’s crown", and is a repository library for legal texts published in the United Kingdom. The library covers five floors of Charles Clore House with the library entrance on the fourth floor. The library catalogue forms part of a shared catalogue with its fellow

institutes and that of

Senate House Library Senate House is the administrative centre of the University of London, situated in the heart of Bloomsbury, London, immediately to the north of the British Museum. The Art Deco building was constructed between 1932 and 1937 as the first phase ...

. The institute library is considered one of the world's leading comparative research libraries, holding significant material not otherwise available in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Jurisdictions covered include countries in, North America,

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

(including the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

) and the Commonwealth. The library is particularly strong in

Public International Law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. It has a large collection of United States Federal resources and holdings of State primary resources, focused on

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, New York,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, and

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. Postgraduate law students of the

colleges, including

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

London School of Economics and Political Science The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, King's College London, and

Queen Mary, University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

rely exclusively on the institute's research holdings for coursework.

Projects

Since the late 1990s, IALS has participated in collaborative and standalone digital projects resulting in a number of searchable databases publicly available via the website. These include FLAG (Foreign Law Guides), FIT (Flare Index to Treaties), and Eagle-I, which builds upon the original

Jisc Jisc is a United Kingdom not-for-profit company that provides network and IT services and digital resources in support of further and higher education institutions and research as well as not-for-profits and the public sector. History T ...

funded

Intute Intute was a free Web service aimed at students, teachers, and researchers in UK further education and higher education. Intute provided access to online resources, via a large database of resources. Each resource was reviewed by an academic spec ...

: Law project (formerly SOSIG Law).

Collaborations

The IALS library has partnered with other libraries and organisations in promotions and projects to highlight legal research. The library concentrates on printed and digital resources, often as lead developer for web-based initiatives. Ongoing collaborations with the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

and

BAILII The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII, pronounced "Bailey") provides legal information, and especially reports of cases decided by courts, in the United Kingdom generally. Decisions from England and Wales, Ireland, Northern ...

have led to increased web presence for legal research, with IALS hosting

and supporting its role in providing free access to full text

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

legal materials. The Concordat with the

is a collaboration to map existing holdings in foreign legal materials in both libraries and collate information to form a national collection of foreign official gazettes. Recently the library became a charter member of LLCM-Digital, a US-based consortium of libraries dedicated to the preservation of legal documentation for dissemination via a searchable online database.

Research

The institute actively promotes research by its own academic staff and students in conjunction with its role as a national legal research centre. Research centres at the institute contribute to legal research via externally funded projects or study, with the Sir William Dale Centre, and Woolf Chair of Legal Education at the fore. Areas of research conducted by the institute include legislative drafting, human rights, international financial regulation, and transnational taxation law. Notable recent works by Institute faculty includes ''Thornton's Legislative Drafting, Fifth Edition'', by Professor Helen Xanthaki, and ''Foundations and Future of Financial Regulation'' and ''European Comparative Company Law'' by Professor Mads Andenas. Through its association with the

, the institute offers a number of fellowships for legal research to both national and international legal academics and practitioners. Fellows give lectures in their field of expertise during their tenure.

Postgraduate programmes

There are over 70

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

M.Phil. The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil ...

students studying at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, in addition to postgraduate law students registered for LL.M. and

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degrees. The LL.M. in Advanced Legislative Studies, which the institute claims is "prized by governments around the world as the flagship degree in the subject," trains lawyers from across the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...

world in the art of statutory drafting, law reform, and the legislative process. The programme emphasizes a "blend of academic and practitioner concerns in narea of critical constitutional importance." During the summer term, short courses are available on a variety of relevant topics. Courses include the Sir William Dale Centre Course in Legislative Drafting and the Certificate in International Commercial Arbitration. In 2013, the peer-reviewed ''IALS Student Law Review'' was founded, offering both Master's and Ph.D. students the opportunity to publish original research and manage a scholarly journal.

Lectures and exchange programmes

The institute has one main lecture theatre complemented by a number of smaller lecture/seminar rooms. Each year, it arranges workshops and lectures for academics and practitioners. Two annual conferences hosted by the IALS are the W. G. Hart Workshop and the Hamlyn Lectures series. The institute maintains exchange programmes with foreign legal institutions. A partnership with the Beijing Arbitration Commission, established in 2012, seeks to promote the study of alternative dispute resolution, and deepen Sino-British legal relationships. The IALS has also begun an exchange programme with judges from the Brazilian

State of Pernambuco Pernambuco () is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it seventh-most populous state of Brazil and with around 98,148 km², being the 19 ...

and the School of Advanced Judicial Studies of Pernambuco. This program focuses on comparative

/ civil law features and law reform consequences.

References

External links

Institute of Advanced Legal Studies

Sir William Dale Centre for Legislative Studies

Information Law & Policy Centre Blog "> Information Law & Policy Centre Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Institute Of Advanced Legal Studies Advanced Legal Studies Law schools in England Legal research Educational institutions established in 1947 1947 establishments in England