LEAFLETS: Aesthetics in Legal Education

When: Tuesday, June 9, 2026, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Where: Room 3.1, Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), 67-69 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3JB

The FIVE LEAF Institute for Law and Aesthetics is proud to launch LEAFLETS, its seminar series in law and aesthetics, with

Aesthetics in Legal Education

Overview

This was a special discussion on the theme of aesthetics in legal education, the importance and contribution to learning and legal pedagogy. At a time where new technologies are having a significant impact on the legal education environment, this seminar was crucial for investigating and considering the importance of an aesthetic of understanding, engagement, and enquiry in contemporary legal education. 

The Speakers

Professor Guilherme Vasconcelos is a Professor in the Law Department of ITAM, Mexico where his research interests include interdisciplinary and comparative thinking about the role of law in social ordering and its manifold relations to aesthetic and cultural media. With Maria Varaki, and for Cambridge University Press, Guilherme co-edited the book Ethical Leadership in International Organizations: Concepts, Narratives, Judgment, and Assessment, the first sustained discussion of the potential and limits of virtue ethics in international affairs.

Dr Rosie Fox is Lecturer in Legal Education at University of Leeds Law School. Rosie is an expert in audio-visual legal pedagogy, law and drag, doctoral legal education, and law and dress. Rosie’s research focuses on cultivating new and innovative approaches to how we teach and learn about law and criminal justice, and the aesthetics of law and legal experience, with a particular interest in visual approaches to teaching law, gamification of learning, and authentic, inclusive, and equitable assessment. With Dr James Greenwood-Reeves, Rosie heads up the “Law’s a Drag” research network, which connects drag artists and academics, empower and amplifies the voices of drag artists in drag-and-law related research, and seeks to connect meaningfully with drag artists and curate areas of research that are important to them and their experiences of law.

Eliza Platts-Mills (Discussant) is a Lecturer in Clinical Legal Education at CCLS, School of Law, as a member of qLegal, the award-winning pro bono legal clinic providing free legal advice, support and resources to entrepreneurs, start-ups and non-profits, and of course invaluable experiences for the students at CCLS. Prior to joining CCLS, Eliza was a Clinical Law Professor with the University of Texas School of Law’s Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic.

The discussion was chaired by Professor Johanna Gibson, Director of the FIVE LEAF Institute for Law and Aesthetics, and Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London.