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 2009-2023 seminars can be found on this site. No seminar took place in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The sixteenth seminar took place on Friday 13 June 2025 on the University of Glasgow campus, when the following papers were presented:
- Dr Andrew Cornford (Edinburgh): “Controlling prosecution decisions"
- Dr Rachel Ferguson (Glasgow Caledonian): “Sexual offences against children in the practice of the criminal law”
- Dr Kate Leader (Queen Mary): “Defendants as victims: a scoping study of vulnerability, victimhood and safeguards from charge to conviction"
- Dr Rachel McPherson (Glasgow): “The use of non harassment orders in sentencing domestic abuse"
- Tania Nascimento (Strathclyde): "The emotion work of restorative justice facilitators"
- Professor David Ormerod (UCL): "The Independent Review of Criminal Courts - Phase 1"
- Chris Vannart (Dundee): "Exploring Scottish criminal procedure from the forgiving victim's perspective"
The seventeenth seminar will take place in 2026 and details will be posted on this site in due course. Any questions can be directed to james.chalmers@glasgow.ac.uk.