Dr Andrew Francis

Title: Professor
Phone: +44(0)1782 733222
Email:
Location: Chancellor's Building, room CBC 1.017
Role: Head of School
Contacting me: During office hours without an appointment, or email to make an appointment.

Andrew read Law at the University of Birmingham and graduated in 1995. Following an LLM (by research) at Birmingham, he spent three years at the University of Glamorgan studying for a PhD which developed into the first major academic analysis of legal executives. His research at Keele University provides insights into three crucial aspects of Social Mobility and Access to the Legal Professions: legal executives, part-time law students, and access to work experience. In addition to his research publications in this area (e.g. At the Edge of Law, 2011), he has prioritised engagement with the profession and in supporting national widening participation initiatives. He was appointed one of the first five Academic Fellows of Inner Temple in 2010.

Andrew joined the School of Law at Keele University in September 2000, was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in 2008 and promoted to a personal Chair in January 2013. He became Head of the School of Law on the 1st February 2011.

Andrew’s research interests include the legal profession, legal education and access to justice, including diversity issues. In developing a series of articles on legal executives, he was responsible for the first major academic analysis of this neglected branch of the legal profession.

Recent research includes a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation (with Iain McDonald of the University of West England) exploring the experiences and aspirations of part-time law students and a UKCLE funded project (with Professor Hilary Sommerlad) which analyses the role that ‘legal work experience’ plays in both mediating access to the profession and in socialisation.

At the Edge of Law: Divergent and Emergent Models of Legal Professionalism (2011, Ashgate) draws on empirical research to analyse contemporary changes in legal professionalism from the standpoint of marginal professional actors, and advocates a theoretical framework which takes greater account of contingency within legal professionalism.

In 2012, he secured funding from Inner Temple, to support a PhD project exploring the strategies invoked by professional associations to address social mobility concerns.

His next project aims to address Generational Change within the Legal Profession and is also working closely within the CLOCK initiative to develop research projects in collaboration with academic colleagues and community partners.

Andrew currently supervises three PhD students on a range of topics relating to legal education and the legal profession. He is happy to supervise post-graduate research in empirical social-legal studies in the areas of regulation and legal services, particularly in the structure, history and role of the legal profession. He would also be interested in projects in the broad area of legal education.

Selected Publications

  • Francis A. 2011. At the Edge of Law. Aldershot: Ashgate. link> link>
  • Francis AM. 2010. STEP Research Project: Disciplinary Heritage and Expert Knowledge in Trusts and Estates Work. link>
  • FRANCIS AM and McDonald I. 2009. After Dark and Out in the Cold: Part-time Law Students and the Myth of `Equivalency'. Journal of Law and Society, vol. 36(2), 220-247. doi>
  • Francis A and Sommerlad H. 2009. Access to legal work experience and its role in the (re)production of legal professional identity. International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol. 16(1), 63-86. doi>
  • Francis AM and Sommerlad H. 2009. Access to Legal Work Experience – Interim Report. link>

Full Publications List show

Books

  • Francis A. 2011. At the Edge of Law. Aldershot: Ashgate. link> link>

Journal Articles

  • FRANCIS AM and McDonald I. 2009. After Dark and Out in the Cold: Part-time Law Students and the Myth of `Equivalency'. Journal of Law and Society, vol. 36(2), 220-247. doi>
  • Francis A and Sommerlad H. 2009. Access to legal work experience and its role in the (re)production of legal professional identity. International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol. 16(1), 63-86. doi>
  • FRANCIS A. 2008. Legal Ethics, Moral Agency and Professional Autonomy: The Unbearable Ethics of Being (a Legal Executive)?. Legal Ethics, vol. 10(2), 131-153.
  • FRANCIS AM. 2006. 'I'm Not One of Those Women's Libber Type People but...': Gender, Class and Professional Power within the Third Branch of the English Legal Profession. Social and Legal Studies, vol. 15(4), 475-493. doi>
  • Francis AM and McDonald IW. 2006. Preferential treatment, social justice, and the part-time law student - The case for the value-added part-time law degree. JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, vol. 33(1), 92-108. link> doi>
  • FRANCIS AM. 2005. 'Legal ethics, the marketplace and the fragmentation of legal professionalism'. International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol. 12(No 2), 173-199. doi>
  • FRANCIS AM and McDonald IW. 2005. Part-time Law Students: the Forgotten Cohort?. Law Teacher, vol. 39(3), 277-298.
  • FRANCIS AM. 2004. Out of touch and out of time: lawyers, their leaders and collective mobility within the legal profession. Legal Studies, vol. 24(3), 322–348. doi>
  • FRANCIS AM. 2002. Legal executives and the phantom of legal professionalism: the rise and rise of the third branch of the legal profession?. International Journal of the Legal Profession, vol. 9(1), 5-25. doi>
  • Francis AM. 2000. Lawyers, CABx and the Community Legal Service: A new dawn for social welfare law provision?. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, vol. 22(1), 59-75. link> doi> link>

Chapters

  • Francis AM and McDonald I. 2000. All dressed up and nowhere to go? Part time law students and the legal profession. In Discriminating lawyers. Thomas PA (Ed.). Routledge Cavendish. link>

Other

  • Francis AM. 2010. STEP Research Project: Disciplinary Heritage and Expert Knowledge in Trusts and Estates Work. link>
  • Francis AM and Sommerlad H. 2009. Access to Legal Work Experience – Interim Report. link>
  • Francis AM. 2005. Review of R. Abel English Lawyers Between Market and State: The Politics of Professionalism.
  • Francis AM and Arora A. 1998. Rule of Lawyers.
  • Francis AM. 1998. The Government of Wales Bill and the Law Society: Professional, Practice and Legal Implications/ Mesur Llywodraeth Cymru a Chymdeithas y Cyfreithwyr: oblygiadau proffesiynol, practis a chyfreithiol.

Teaching:

Currently teaching on Law & Ethics (Law-20020) and on various PGT modules.

One of the first five Academic Fellows of Inner Temple

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Qualifications: PhD, PGCert.HE, LLM, LLB, FHEA

Member of SLS

Member of the SLSA