The Annual Gerald Gordon Seminar on Criminal Law
On the 11th and 12th of June 2009, a two-day seminar, followed by a public lecture by Lord Hope of Craighead, was held in honour of Sir Gerald Gordon CBE QC LLD. A Festschrift, Essays in Criminal Law in Honour of Sir Gerald Gordon, was published the following year.
Following the success of this event, a decision was taken to establish the Gerald Gordon Seminar on Criminal Law as an annual generalist criminal law seminar. These seminars have been supported by the Clark Foundation for Legal Education and the Faculty of Advocates, while the 2009 public lecture received additional support from W. Green. Full details of the 2009-2025 seminars can be found on this site. No seminar took place in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The seventeenth seminar will take place on Thursday 11 June 2026 on the University of Glasgow campus, where the following speakers will present:
- Dr Grant Barclay (Glasgow): "Hearsay in Scotland: pure and simple?"
- Professor Hannah Bows (Durham): "How to kill your wife and get away with it? Mercy killings in England and Wales"
- Dr Samantha Fairclough (Birmingham): "Conceptualising vulnerable defendants' best interests in criminal trials"
- Francesco Florimonte (Liverpool): "Interrogating deception: towards a theory of criminal liability in deceptive sexual relations"
- Dr Rory Kelly (Galway): "Expressive punishment and rule of law values"
- Dr Lewis Ross (LSE): "Release and reconciliation"
- Yu Zhou (Glasgow): "The blind spot on abuse of positions of trust: a comparison between criminal law in Scotland and Taiwan"
The event is supported by the Clark Foundation for Legal Education. Attendance is free but registration is required: tickets can be booked here. Any questions can be directed to james.chalmers@glasgow.ac.uk.