Plenet legal empowerment conference - February 2009
Public legal education: Improving lives, empowering communities.
The Legal Empowerment Conference - the first ever PLE conference in the UK - took place on the 23rd February 2009 at Dexter House, Tower Hill London.
Our conference brought together lawyers and advisers, researchers and academics, educators and community development workers, policy makers and activist for a full day of speakers, workshops discussion and debate. We conducted a web-survey before the event to gauge what people expected from the day and how the felt about the evolving PLE movement.
Read the 
PLE Conference Report (3.8 MB)
We set ourselves the task of answering the question, 'How can PLE empower individuals and communities?' We weren’t disappointed with the range of ideas, suggestions and comments that came forward from delegates and speakers - contributions that stretched our horizons, contested assumptions and helped define future goals.
You can read the websurvey here:
Debates from the day were stimulating. Despite the challenges faced in a climate of economic downturn the mood of the conference was one of optimism and a willingness to collaborate and be creative in addressing the legal empowerment needs of the people we work with.
Speakers including the Parliamentary under-Secretary of State for Justice; Lord Bach, Professor Dame Hazel Genn and our Canadian guests; Professor Lois Gander and Dr Diane Rhyason contributed their views and insights on the developments, challenges and opportunities PLE can offer.
Delegates attended workshops looking at: how advice agencies can better engage with their local communities and deal with the practicalities of PLE projects; the role of adult learning and the need to improve legal capability in the adult population; young people's needs in the context of PLE and the challenges of working with marginalised groups; international examples of PLE such as community activism in the Philippines; examples of how pro bono support has been used to deliver models of PLE by law schools; and finally the principles and practice of PLE evaluation.
We hope you'll be able to join us for future events. Please sign up to the network so we can keep you posted about our work and opportunities to meet other PLE enthusiasts.
You can read the full conference report here:
Introduction by Martin Jones - ASA Advicenow:
Presentation by Dame Professor Hazel Genn:
Here you'll find the questions that were put to our speakers:
Presentation by Professor Lois Gander and Dr. Diane Rhyason:
You can look at the 'learning mats' completed by delegates here:
You can find out more about the workshops here:
Associated papers to the Advice agencies and PLE workshop:
PLE - Tools and techniques (376 KB)
PLE - Identifying learning methods (0.8 MB)
Progress towards equality (23 KB)
Delegates also received this guide to evaluation principles and practices:
You can read what delegates said they had learned on the day here:
Plenet is a network of organisations and individuals working in the field of public legal education. Plenet provides a place to share information and ideas, to promote good practice in delivering public legal education, and to improve awareness of the need for and value of public legal education.
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