About the centre
The Centre for Legal Education and the Legal Profession (CLELP) is one of the UK’s leading hubs for research and innovation in legal education and the legal profession. We study how the profession and legal services market are changing, and how legal education in law schools is evolving through rigorous empirical, doctrinal and socio-legal research.
Our members research, teach and collaborate across themes that shape modern legal education and practice, including LegalTech and Generative AI, Clinical Legal Education, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in the Legal Sector, Legal Ethics and Professional Regulation, Access to the Profession and Widening Participation, Student Employability and Careers, Curriculum and Assessment Design, and Communities of Practice in Legal Education.
CLELP sits within Westminster Law School, one of the largest and most diverse law schools in the UK. Our members teach across a wide range of subjects and bring current research into the curriculum. We play a central role in the student experience equipping our students with the knowledge, confidence and professional skills to thrive in their future careers. Through our Legal Careers, Employability and Professional Development Hub, led by CLELP’s Student Fellows, students can take part in activities that connect legal education with practice, explore routes into the profession, and build the skills and attributes most valued by employers.
About the speaker
Michael Doherty
Prof Michael Doherty was appointed as Professor of Law at Lancaster in 2019. In 2024, he became the first Professor of Legal Design in the world. He is Associate Head of the Law School and the lead for student experience. He is a former Chair of the Association of Law Teachers, and his scholarship covers both substantive law and scholarship of teaching and learning.
His current research and pedagogy focus is in the developing field of legal design - applying design thinking to legal problems and processes. He has co-edited a leading collection on legal design and technology (published by Edward Elgar, 2021), and another collection on 'Transforming Higher Education with Human-Centred Design'.
His research explores many facets of legal design such as the cultural barriers to bringing design thinking into law, the implications of information design practices for the rule of law, and has applied design thinking to legal education and curriculum development.
