Professor Richard Grimes

Profile

Biography

Richard Grimes

• Ph.D. – Northumbria University, 2017
• Barrister and Solicitor, 1996, (Republic of Fiji)
• Diploma in Professional Studies in Education, Sheffield Hallam University, 1992
• Solicitor of the Supreme Court, 1977, (England and Wales)
• MA (Criminology), University of Sheffield, 1976
• LLB (Hons), Upper Second, University of Birmingham, 1973

Awards

• O.B.E. (Pro Bono Services), 2007
• Honorary Companion, University of Manchester, 2003
• Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Award, University of York, 2014/15

Richard (re)joined York Law School in September 2025 as a part-time lecturer to assist with the teaching and learning of skills and professionalism and to help supervise cases and students in the Law Clinic.

After obtaining LLB (Birmingham) and MA (Criminology, Sheffield) degrees he qualified as a solicitor in 1977 and worked initially in a law centre and later as a full-equity partner for a provincial law firm, handling a wide range of, principally, publicly funded cases. He has long retained an interest in law teaching and research as well as legal practice in the belief that the one informs the other and has worked at a number of universities in England and Ireland.

In 1990 he joined Sheffield Hallam University where he established an in-house solicitors’ practice in which undergraduate law students handled real cases under professional supervision, as an assessed elective. He was seconded to the University of the South Pacific from 1995 – 1997 where he became the Director of the Institute for Justice and Applied Legal Studies. In 1998 he was appointed Head of Law and Professor of Legal Education at the University of Derby and in 2000 joined The College of Law as Professor and Director and of Pro Bono Services and Clinical Education.

From 2006 to 2010 Richard acted as an independent consultant on a variety of legal education projects in the UK and further afield including in Argentina, Iran, Ireland, Nigeria, the Philippines and South Africa. He was then appointed as Director of Clinical Programmes at the York Law School then a newly established law school that as all who are connected with YLS know, bases its approach to legal education principally on problem-based learning. He continues to act as a consultant having worked in recent years in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Myanmar, Palestine, Turkey and Viet Nam, focusing on legal education reform.

Richard is a Visiting Professor at Charles University, Prague, New Vision University, Georgia and at the University of Dundee. He has published widely on legal education in general and clinical methods in particular and on developing legal skills. He remains committed to enhancing levels of public legal literacy and improving access to justice as well as maximising learning for law students.

Research

Overview

Richard’s wide professional practice experience means that he is familiar with many (if not an expert in all!) aspects of contentious and transactional legal work, particularly those with a social welfare focus. His research specialisms similarly cover a range of access to justice and experiential learning matters in both common and civil law jurisdictional contexts.

Publications

Selected publications

• Re-thinking legal education under the civil and common law; a road map for constructive change, (edited), Routledge, 2018
• Public legal education: the role of law schools in building a more legally literate society, Routledge, 2021
• Teaching migration law: theory and practice (edited with V. Honusova and U. Stege), Routledge, 2022
• How to set up and run a law clinic (with D. Nicolson and J. Newman), Edward Edgar, 2023
• Teaching and Learning Climate and Environmental Justice in Law Schools: Global Perspectives on Transforming the Curriculum, (edited with S. Levett, R. Samaras and R. Williams), Routledge, 2025

External activities

Overview

Richard has undertaken consultancy work for a range of governmental, regulatory, not for profit and education providers. At home and abroad including UNDP, George Soros Foundation, USAid, Raoul Wallenberg Institute and other international service and donor organisations.

He continues to be active on this front. He was a founder member of the Clinical Legal Education Organisation (CLEO) and the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE).