In late 2021, a small group of legal scholars began a discussion about possibly setting up a new academic association for law and humanities research which would be registered in the UK, but open to people around Europe and the world. This led to a small, reflective event at Warwick Law School in early 2022, exploring ‘the promise of cultural legal studies’ and reflecting on the idea of a new association in this area. After a number of subsequent meetings and discussions on how to proceed in a transparent and inclusive way, an open call was released in late 2022. This asked for interested colleagues to volunteer to form an ‘interim committee’ to undertake the work of creating a new learned society for law and humanities, and provided some indicative suggestions of what this might entail. Over twenty members of the legal studies community responded to this call, from within and beyond the UK, and formed the interim committee. This group then began a wide-ranging set of conversations.

The conversations of the interim committee of this as-yet-unformed association explored a range of critical questions, and took very little as given. What functions and roles should the interim committee take in relation to any future association? Do we need an association? Despite being self-selecting as interested in the possibility of a new association, the conversations held open the question of whether an association was the right way forward.

Under the impetus of this umbrella question, the interim committee considered the nature of law and humanities work, how its scope and value might be defined, and the concomitant need or not of a new scholarly society. It also reflected on if or why such an association might be needed, what communal or intellectual value it might provide if it was, and the costs of complicity with modern legal and institutional forms that its creation and maintenance would likely involve. What might an association for law and humanities look like? What public tasks and roles might it undertake? What community work might it fulfil?

The interim committee existed in an interstitial space, not yet formalised, but already caught within a kind of proto-institutional structure.

Its members engaged reflexively with the committee’s own status, and improvised its own structures, material techniques, and ways of working that fulfilled its needs, with these needs being primarily the critically discursive work of creating a political form of institution out of the community of engaged law and humanities scholars. Members engaged, disengaged, created, critiqued. This discursive work, these wide-ranging conversations, unfolded in diverse formats, in small sub-groups, in online plenary discussions, in chats and collective email chains. Through these discussions, the interim committee self-consciously adopted the role of shepherding the association into existence: to define the association’s scope, to set up the practical structures required, to seek and establish an inaugural membership, and to facilitate this membership to vote in an inaugural committee to take the association forward (at which point, the interim committee will dissolve itself).

Over the next year, this community action gradually resolved into a number of institutional artworks. Notably: a drafted overview of the association’s rationale and scope, the creation of a non-profit company as the legal form of the projected association, the creation and ratification of a written constitution formalised as the articles of association for the association’s company form, an association website, and a name: the Legal Humanities Association.

Progression then took an extended hiatus, waiting for the slow and tentative machinations of the UK banking sector to run through their byzantine processes. Eventually, an association bank account was permitted to open, and access was granted.

Everything in place, membership payment systems were set up, a call created, and the LHA was declared open for membership by an email call first released on Wednesday 2 April, 2025 to the law-culture mailing list. Below is a copy of this declaration, now (it is hoped) circulating more widely:

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that the Legal Humanities Association is now open!

The LHA is a new UK-based learned society, fostering a community dedicated to cultural understandings of law. It is a home for scholars, research students, practitioners, and others working across law, humanities, and cultural studies, irrespective of geographic location. Join now as an inaugural member and help shape the future of the LHA and the legal humanities research community.

The LHA is open for inaugural members to join. Membership is £50 (standard) or £25 (concession), and inaugural membership is free for the reast of 2025 (first payment will be Jan 2026). Payment is by direct debit: full details on the website. We will host an online inaugural event online in July 2025, which will include the first General Meeting at which members will vote in the LHA’s first Governance Committee. Any member can put themselves forward to join the Governance Committee or take up any of the officer roles, including Chair. See the website for more details.

Join now to get involved and help shape the future of the legal humanities academic community. Find out more: legalhumanities.com

The administrative journey of the interim committee is not yet complete. It still remains to fulfil its final function: to install a democratically elected Governance Committee. This will take place at an inaugural general meeting, currently planned to take place in July 2025, at which the inaugural membership will be able to put themselves forward to take on Governance Committee roles (including Chair, Finance, Membership, General, etc). 

See the LHA website for more information, and for details on how to join.