Society of Legal Scholars recognition for Holli Sargeant and Alistair Mills

Holli delivers her paper at the SLS Conference
 

The Faculty is delighted to welcome the recent announcement by The Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) that PhD candidate Holli Sargeant had been awarded the Best Doctoral Paper prize from the Annual SLS conference in September.

The judging panel for the award commended Sargeant's analysis and strong survey of the issues in her paper 'Algorithmic decision-making in financial services: Economic and normative outcomes in consumer credit.'

In a strong showing by Faculty members, Alistair Mills was also shortlisted for the prestigious Best Paper prize, with his piece ''Not Like That': The Interpretation of Policies, Legislation, and Contracts'.

Responding to the announcement, Hollis said: "I am honoured and excited to have been awarded the SLS Best Doctoral Paper Prize award. I would especially like to thank my PhD supervisor Dr Felix Steffek for his ongoing encouragement, feedback and support of my doctoral research. My thanks also go to Dr Lars Vinx and Dr Måns Magnusson (Uppsala University) for their feedback on the development of this work."

Alistair followed up: "I'm very honoured to have been shortlisted for the Best Paper Prize. I’m grateful to Jessie Blackbourn and Lizzy O’Loughlin, (Subject Convenors for Public Law) for running such an enjoyable session, and to all those who engaged in the discussion. I’m also indebted to those in the Faculty of Law at Cambridge who have discussed the interpretation of policy with me."

Papers were nominated by convenors of the subject sections and judged by a panel consisting of Catharine MacMillan (immediate past president), James Lee (representing Legal Studies), and Nicola Wake (Subject Sections Secretary). The Panel were impressed with the very high quality of all the papers.

The Faculty also send warmest congratulations to Alysia Blackham (University of Melbourne and formerly of the Faculty) for the award of Best Paper.

The Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) is the learned society for those who teach law in a university or similar institution or who are otherwise engaged in legal scholarship. As at the beginning of 2017 the SLS had nearly 3000 members consisting primarily of academic lawyers in the UK and Ireland. The SLS (formerly called The Society of Public Teachers of Law) was founded in 1908 and has charitable status. It is the oldest as well as the largest learned society in the field of law. The Society is the principal representative body for legal academics in the UK as well as one of the larger learned societies in arts, humanities and social science.