I have always enjoyed teaching and since I left the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel in 2010 I have taken advantage of my additional freedom as a non-civil servant to become involved in a number of training and teaching projects.
Up until the end of 2022, I enjoyed training and teaching both as part of commercial training exercises for DODs and Civil Service Training College and in collaboration with academic institutions. I am an active Senior research fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London where I teach on the international drafting LLM course. I am a faculty member of the Athabasca University legislative drafting course, an Associate Research Fellow of the Law Faculty of Bar Ilan University, a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research at the University of St Andrews, a Fellow of the Bingham Institute for the Rule of Law and a Council Member of the Statute Law Society. I was also a Director of the Constitution Reform Group, which I have now stepped down from.
Over the last few years I have developed a particularly enjoyable relationship with civil servants and politicians in Wales. Since 2011 I have delivered a series of training sessions in statutory interpretation, legislative scrutiny and legislative preparation to Committees of the National Assembly for Wales, Clerks of the Assembly, Welsh Government Lawyers and Welsh Legislative Drafters.
In 2012 I delivered a 5-day course on statutory interpretation to drafting officers and others from the Attorney General’s Chambers, as part of the 2012 programme of ILKAP – the Malaysian Judicial and Legal Training Institute.
In 2013 I started working with Committees and staff of the Northern Ireland Assembly providing training in legislative scrutiny, along the lines that I have been doing for the National Assembly for Wales. At my most recent visit I had the pleasure of holding a seminar for law students at the University of Ulster and addressing the Attorney General’s Symposium on law-making.
In October 2013 I travelled to Myanmar where I conducted a series of seminars on legislative drafting and statutory interpretation organised by the United Nations Development Programme. I also provided support in reviewing some of the laws. At the opening of the seminar the Attorney General, Dr. Tun Shin thanked UNDP for organizing this seminar, and noted it “is the first one of its kind” and “is very beneficial for law officers as well as for the Office and Ministries in the country”. I had the pleasure of running follow-up seminars for the UNDP in Myanmar in November 2014, for members of the Union Attorney General’s Office, staff from a range of Ministries and districts, and parliamentary staff. In 2020 I provided training to Myanmar Attorney General’s Office lawyers.
I have been working with the Chief Legislative Drafter’s Office in Sri Lanka to produce an office drafting manual, and I provided training in 2019 and 2020.
Wales
Since 2010 I have been involved in various ways in the legislative development of Wales, working for the National Assembly for Wales and for the Welsh Government.
National Assembly
Since 2011 I have been involved in training provided for Members of the National Assembly for Wales in legislative scrutiny. I have also carried out other work within the assembly, including acting as special adviser to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee in its inquiry into the quality of Welsh Legislation, reporting in 2015.
Welsh Government
Since 2012 I have participated in the Welsh Government’s training programme for officials involved in the preparation of legislation, delivering regular lectures on the legislative process.
Other Welsh Public Bodies
I have drafted legislation on Commission for a range of public bodies in Wales, and have advised the Law Commission on its project on the Form and Accessibility of the Law Applicable in Wales (including meetings with Law Commission officials
Northern Ireland
I have been working with the Northern Ireland Assembly since 2011 in helping to develop their legislative capacity in a variety of ways.
Preparing to give a session on legisaltive scrutiny to the Northern Ireland Assembly
September 2015
Politics Plus
The Politics Plus organisation operating within the Northern Ireland Assembly has commissioned me to provide training sessions for Members of the Legislative Assembly on legislative scrutiny. We produced a booklet for Members on aspects of legislation, and I have conducted sessions with individual Committees in preparation for their consideration of particular Bills.
Other roles
In addition to my work with Politics Plus, I have worked on implementation of the Stormont House Agreement with the Committee on the Administration of Justice, and have undertaken other Northern Ireland-related activities (including participating in seminars organised by the Attorney General).
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
For the last few years I have had the enormous pleasure of teaching on the LLM Legislative Drafting course at the IALS in the University of London, as well as on their annual summer course. I teach both practical and more academic aspects of legislative drafting, and I get enormous pleasure from these sessions with experienced and less experienced drafters from all over the world, who always bring a lot of thought-provoking and challenging ideas to the courses. The photos on the left are of one of my experimental sessions in the park!
I was also a founder member of the IALS’ Legislative Drafters forum – you can read or join the forum at http://legislativedrafters.blogspot.com/
I am a Senior Research Fellow of the IALS.
Derby University
I have a new association (as of summer 2012) with the School of Law and Criminology at Derby University.
My role as Visiting Professor of Legislation will involve a number of visits to the University to meet with academics and students, to advise on particular projects and to give occasional lectures and seminars. My first visit earlier this year was enormously enjoyable, and I found a range of exciting activities going on at all levels of the faculty, some of which I could understand and some of which I could even contribute to. I am enormously looking forward to developing an association with this vibrant institution over the coming years.
I gave my inaugural lecture in honour of Chief Justice Wilmot on Monday 19th November 2012, on the subject of the Dangerously Diminishing Distinction between the Civil and Criminal Laws. You can read the text of my lecture here.
Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law
In February 2016 I joined the Bingham Centre for the Rule of the Law as an External fellow, I look forward to working with them on constitutional law projects.