GO Justice Challenge
The GO Justice Challenge is a student competition organised by the School of Law at the University of Glasgow. It aims to develop students' analytical thinking, independent research skills, and oral and written communication skills, which can be very valuable in their future professional careers.
The GO Justice Challenge draws inspiration from mooting competitions and similar exercises of “experiential learning”. Instead of working on a fictitious legal problem, however, participating students will undertake research to try to address real legal problems. In addition to supporting students’ development of professional skills, the GO Justice Challenge aims to raise awareness among Law students of the ways in which they, as lawyers, can contribute to social change. For that reason, the problems in which students will work during the GO Justice Challenge will have an important dimension of social justice.
Every year, the competition is structured around a series of pressing challenges identified by third sector organisations. In collaboration with a School of Law academic staff member, each partner organisation will present the challenge that participating students will have to address using their legal research skills. Student teams will draft and submit a report developing their response to a specific challenge. The winners of the competition will be announced at a final event to be held at the end of the second term.
Details of the GO Justice Challenge 21-22 will be announced here in October 2021.
2019-2020
2018-2019
In its first edition, the GO Justice Challenge attracted 20 students from various undergraduate programmes (Scots Law LLB, Common Law LLB, and Scots Law LLB Graduate entry) divided into 9 teams. The teams worked on five different challenges, which were prepared by three partner organisations: Just Right Scotland, the Ombudsman Association, and Shelter Scotland. Some academic members of staff coordinated the challenges posed by each partner organisation and provided minimal supervision over the students’ work: Dr Chris Gill, Ms Maria Fletcher and Prof Tom Mullen.
The best reports prepared for each of the challenges were announced at a final event, which was held on Thursday, 21 March 2019, in the Gloag Lecture Theatre, at the School of Law. The Best Overall Report Prize was awarded to Hannah Graham and Marianne Wilson for their analysis on access to justice for those in housing need / facing homelessness: Housing need report - Wilson and Graham
We would like to express our gratitude to Donal Galligan (Ombudsman Association), Fiona McPhail (Shelter Scotland), and Jen Ang (Just Right Scotland) for setting up the challenges and for their involvement in the competition.
The first edition of the GO Justice Challenge was made possible by the generous support of the University’s Learning and teaching Development Fund (LTDF).