Professor Alex Nicholson delivers the 11th Faculty Inaugural Lecture
The faculty was delighted to host Professor Nicholson's lecture in celebration of his impressive scholarship career.
On Thursday 4 December, Professor Alex Nicholson delivered the 11th Faculty of Social Sciences Inaugural Lecture – a series which began in October 2024 to celebrate the achievement of colleagues who have been promoted to or appointed at the rank of Professor.
Professor Alex Nicholson is a Professor of Legal Education in the School of Law.
Professor Nicholson delivering his lecture.
Alex is a lawyer, educationalist and academic leader. After running his own video production business for seven years, he began his legal career as a solicitor at the global business law firm DLA Piper. In 2014, Alex left private practice to take up an academic post at Sheffield Hallam University, where he later became Deputy Head of Law. During this time, he completed both an Executive MBA and a PhD, and led the development of an innovative legal education programme through which students at all levels gained credit-bearing work experience in an on-campus, teaching law firm.
In 2022, Alex joined the School of Law at the University of Leeds, where he now serves as Director of Student Education, overseeing the strategic development of the School’s learning and teaching activities. Alex is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and was named the Faculty of Social Sciences’ Teacher of the Year in 2024. Alex’s teaching and scholarship span legal education, legal strategy, and the law of private obligations. He is best known for his work on the “value” of legal education; examining how value is understood, created and communicated in this context, across stakeholder groups.
Professor Nicholson answering audience questions.
Alex delivered his lecture, “Valuable legal education and aspiring human lawyers: a manifesto” to an audience of colleagues, students, family and friends.
The lecture considered what might be meant by or perceived as the “value” of a legal degree, and how this perception of this “value” is changing and will change further still as legal structures are changed and influenced by artificial intelligence.
Audience applause at Professor Nicholson's lecture.
In his discussion of valuable legal education, “value” was considered not just in it’s instrumental capacity of preparing students for legal professions, but also in a more wholistic sense that recognised the symbolic, experential, communal, and lifelong values of a legal degree.
The lecture was followed by a Q&A session, and finally by a drinks reception.
Professor Nicholson speaking with friends and colleagues at the drinks reception.
The twelfth Faculty of Social Sciences Inaugural Lecture will be delivered by the School of Sociology and Social Policy’s Professor Ana Manzano at 4pm on Wednesday 4 February 2026.
If you are not a colleague or postgraduate researcher in the Faculty of Social Sciences and would like to be added to the mailing list for the series, please email Dr Izzy Jenkinson (Faculty Events Coordinator) at I.K.S.Jenkinson@leeds.ac.uk.
