By common consent, the Education Act of 1944 was the most important educational reform of the century for England and Wales. This article seeks to reveal the role of a lawyer in the making of the legislation and thereby to reassess past interpretations of how the Act was put together. It is clear that the person who drafted the Act, Sir Granville Ram, had an impact on the content of certain sections. The article begins with an outline of the Act and competing interpretations of how it came to be made. It explores the context within which Ram, as a Parliamentary Counsel, did his drafting during the war years. It then turns to the making of clauses in four specific areas of reform. First, local education authorities were given the power to create new types of secondary schools, including comprehensive schools. Secondly, there was a new structure for regulating private education. Thirdly, the Minister of Education was given important new powers. Fourthly, women were no longer required to resign from teaching when they married. These four areas provide examples of how Ram could influence the shape of the statute, and they also reveal that on each occasion his influence was felt in a different way.

Although well over half of law undergraduates are women, in nearly all law schools they are likely to encounter more male lecturers than women. Few of them will meet a woman law professor and even fewer will see a female head of department. Compared with their male counterparts fewer women students and academic staff will go on to the top of their profession. There is clear evidence that women of all ranks in universities are paid less than their male counterparts. The university sector as a whole is only slowly coming to recognise that some proactive policies might he needed before equal opportunities for women and other groups traditionally excluded from the portals are assured. This paper explores some of the explanations for the position of women in UK law schools.

It is still the case in English law that invalid administrative action alone gives rise to no claim for damages. Individuals suffering loss as a result of invalid administrative action may remain uncompensated unless they have a private law remedy against the public body such as a claim in tort or contract. Notwithstanding this prohibition, the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998 and developments in Community damages law have greatly increased the liability of public bodies in damages. However, the extension of liability in these areas raises questions as to whether it is satisfactory or even possible for the prohibition on damages for invalid administrative action to be maintained given the anomalies that have and will be created. Statutory reform, drawing on Community law, the Human Rights Act and jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, may go some way towards resolving existing anomalies and providing individuals with an adequate, alternative means of obtaining redress.

This article examines the steps taken in recent years to mainstream equality issues into the law and policy process in Ireland. Although official discourse increasingly recognises the need to tackle inequality and social exclusion, there is little to suggest that the mainstreaming process has been a transformative one. A reluctance to move beyond established legal categories or to radically challenge law and policy-making processes has greatly restricted the potential for reform. If mainstreaming is to be effective, the pursuit of equality must be recognised as a core norm guiding all aspects of law and policy making. In the Good Friday Agreement the Irish government committed itself to promoting equality in all social and economic activity and to demonstrating its respect for the diverse identities and traditions on the island of Ireland. Much work remains to be done if this commitment is to be fulfilled.

The Charity Commissioners have indicated that they possess a law-making role. This paper evaluates the extent to which the Commissioners have exercised this role in relation to charities for the advancement of religion, and evaluates this role in the light of the Human Rights Act 1998. The analysis draws upon both case law and decisions of the Commissioners, in particular the decision of the Commissioners to refuse status as a religious charity to the Church of Scientology.

Much academic work continues to operate within the cramping and pervasive spirit of a black-letter mentality that encourages scholars and jurists to maintain legal study as an inward-looking and self-contained discipline. There is still a marked tendency to treat law as somehow a world of its own that is separate from the society within which it operates and purports to serve. This is a disheartening and disabling state of affairs. Accordingly, this article will offer both a critique of the present situation and suggest an alternative way of proceeding. The writer recommends a shift from philosophy to democracy so that legal academics will be less obsessed with abstraction and formalism and more concerned with relevance and practicality. In contrast to the hubristic and occasionally mystical aspirations of mainstream scholars, it presents a more humble depiction of the worth and efficacy of the jurisprudential and scholarly project in which ‘usefulness’ is given pride of place. Of course, these fundamental charges are not applicable to all legal scholars. Many scholars are engaged in work that not only challenges the prevailing paradigm of legal scholarship, but also explores exciting new directions for legal study. It will be part of the essay to acknowledge those contributions.