Student Societies

The Law Society is very active in the School of Law, running numerous events throughout the academic year.

Events include:

• social functions
• sporting events
• second hand book sale
• invited speakers

Law Soc also coordinates an annual careers fair, winning Best Careers Event at the most recent National Law Society Awards.

Advocate is the Law Students' Magazine, published each semester and distributed for free to staff and students in the school.

The magazine includes a wide variety of articles, from the serious to the light-hearted. They regularly publish articles on their online magazine and print a magazine once per semester. All students, law or otherwise, are welcome to write articles.

Advocate is a diverse magazine which centres upon law and the legal profession, but includes articles on politics, international relations and much more. They have four associates who are in charge of each of the four sections: Legal Affairs, International Affairs, Domestic Affairs, and University Life and Careers.

Pro Bono is the provision of professional work undertaken voluntarily. Recently winning Best Social Event at the National Law Society Awards, the Pro Bono Society runs a variety of projects within the local community which students are encouraged to take part in.

The main projects include:

• Aspire - running interactive workshops to primary age children offering a basic introduction to law, human rights and justice.
• Howard League for Penal Reform - branch of the national penal reform organisation at the University. They organise guest speakers, debates, and trips.
• Negotiation Competition - open to all members in two streams with a first year competition and then a second and final year competition, with the prize of work experience for the winning teams.
• Nottingham Conviction Review Clinic - students help prisoners claiming factual or legal innocence to make appeals to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
• OutLaw - giving presentations and mock interviews to secondary age students who are considering applying to study law at university.
• StreetLaw - encompasses a variety of activities from regenerating local parks to providing presentations to community groups or students on legal issues relevant to them and organising speaker events. Recently they have also set up links with the Personal Support Unit in Nottingham.
• Unbarred - visiting prisons and providing guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, particularly with relation to the disclosure of convictions upon release.

Internally, they also run Vacation Scheme and Training Contract workshops.

Activities are all open to their members, including interested non-law members.

Mooting is the art of presenting a legal argument to a Judge in a mock court case; in a moot teams of students act as advocates and represent opposing parties in the case.

The University of Nottingham Mooting Society runs four internal Mooting competitions each year, enters external competitions against universities from around the world, provides the necessary training to its members and holds 'friendly' moots and other events throughout the year.

The Bar Society represents all students interested in finding out more about a career at the Bar. They have a full calendar of events throughout the academic year, designed to help members develop contacts, awareness and knowledge of the legal profession.

Typical events include:

• fortnightly trips to Nottingham Crown Court
• dinners at and tours of the four Inns of Court in London
• talks in Nottingham by leading practitioners
• mock trials and advocacy competitions
• advocacy training sessions
• careers sessions including mini-pupillage application workshops

Recently securing the ELSA UK award for most active local group, ELSA Nottingham facilitates international opportunities for law students, centred on six flagship projects, offering them the opportunity to develop their legal skills and make like-minded friends. These include delegations to international institutions (such as the United Nations), summer law schools, international legal research groups and a student traineeship exchange programme.

Members can send in submissions to various law reviews within the network (notably the ELSA Law Review) and keen mooters can take part in two of the world's largest moot court competitions: the European Human Rights Moot Court Competition and the ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO law.