Birmingham University’s Emma Flint was nominated by her students and colleagues
A former City lawyer has been crowned ‘Law Teacher of The Year 2020’.
Emma Flint of the University of Birmingham saw off stiff competition from law academics at the universities of Hertfordshire, Solent, Sussex and The Open University, to take home the coveted award.
She was nominated by her law students and colleagues, who praised Flint’s “humour, personality, and approachability”, and her “passion for learning and teaching that is infectious”. Her nomination also highlighted her work in creating and running the ‘Legal Communications’ module at Birmingham Law School as well as the creative methods she uses when teaching such as blogs, videos and posters “beyond the traditional essay/problem question format”.
The judges, made up of law profs from various institutions for Oxford University Press, also considered Flint’s involvement with ‘Connecting Legal Education’, a group she co-founded at the start of the pandemic to support colleagues with the shift to online learning, as well as ‘Law Talkers’, a peer mentoring service for students she set up.
The judging process was conducted virtually due to Covid-19, with judges observing Flint’s teaching and interviewing students, remotely.
Flint, who teaches legal skills modules as well as land and tort law at Birmingham Law School, said:
“I am delighted to be recognised by Oxford University Press as Law Teacher of the Year 2020. I genuinely love teaching law and feel incredibly lucky to be able to do so. I get the opportunity to be creative, innovative and learn from some of the best brains in the legal academy, particularly from my students.”
Flint moved into teaching in 2008 having spent nearly ten years working as a corporate lawyer in firms in London and Birmingham. She trained at Nabarro (now CMS) in London, before moving to Wragge & Co (Gowling WLG) in Birmingham upon qualification. She specialised in private equity and later moved back to London to join Baker McKenzie.
Last year’s winner was Sabrina Germain, a tort law lecturer at City, University of London.
