Nurturing Future Public Interest Lawyers Through Competitions and Social Change Projects – Exploring its Regional Potential
Date: 3 December
Time: 8.30 – 10.00
Session Description:
Since 2017, PILnet has hosted five cycles of the Law for Change Student Competition in Hong Kong as a tool to nurture the next generation of public interest lawyers. The Competition has attracted 69 social change initiatives from more than 250 students. Of them, thirteen teams were selected to implement their projects, with seed grants and other kinds of support provided by PILnet. Some alumni have since then chosen to work in the non-profit sector and/or have stayed involved in PILnet’s network.
Through the session we aim to collect feedback on and insight into how similar competitions could work outside of Hong Kong and identify potential partners to take it forward with. In the first part of the session, we will introduce the concept of the Student Competition to the audience and also show two of the winning projects – giving the winning teams of this cycle an opportunity to talk about their projects by themselves and hopefully inspire other law students present. In the second part of the session, we will explore the potential of hosting similar competitions in other jurisdictions, both locally and regionally.
Students, professors, lawyers, non-governmental organization representatives and funders are all welcome to join the session. The session will be held in a hybrid mode (both in person and virtually).