Professor Hilary Sommerlad completes visiting professorship at Lund University

Hilary was invited to support the department’s PhD students and work with another professor on two papers and a funding bid.

Professor Hilary Sommerlad has just completed two and a half months as a visiting professor at the Sociology of Law Department, Lund University, and will be returning for a further visit in the spring. 

Described by Professor Ole Hammerslev as a world leading scholar and key figure in international research groupings in the sociology of law and legal ethics for over two decades, Hilary was invited to support the department’s PhD students, in particular with the development of articles aimed at international journals. She also worked with Professor Hammerslev on two papers: post-colonial theory and the legal profession; and globalisation and the legal profession and a funding bid for a study of ‘The rule of lawyers? Interlinked socio-legal (r)evolutions in post-communist countries’. If the bid is successful, she will serve as an adviser on theories of state formation.

Hilary’s other work while in the department included a presentation in the department’s Decolonial Sociology of Law Seminar Series: "The making of a pariah class: activist lawyers’ experiences of post-imperial chauvinism” and acting as a discussant at the launch of Socio-legal Trajectories across Europe: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Christian Boulanger, Naomi Creutzfeldt and Jen Hendry. 

As Professor Sommerlad notes,

Founded in 1666, Lund is one of Sweden’s oldest and most prestigious universities and is placed 75th in the QS World University Rankings, and the department is one of the world's leading institutions for research and education in sociology of law.

“It boasts a very wide range of active research projects, which include Legal Cultures and Business Environments in Central Asia; The Multilevel Orders of Corruption – Insights from a Post-Soviet Context; Informality and precarity; Legal mobilization; Digitalization and Legal Responsibility; Revolving doors to the private sector? A sociolegal study on top state and region officials' transitions to the private sector and their regulation.

“Regular seminars are held which include both informal lunch time presentations and papers delivered by eminent international scholars. It is therefore an extremely stimulating environment within which to work (and a very friendly one).  The city of Lund is very beautiful, with a wonderful Romanesque cathedral.”