A plaque honouring the memory of Kent Law Clinic founding Director Adrian Taylor has been unveiled in the Wigoder Law Building.
Adrian Taylor, a lecturer in law at Kent from 1967 to 1977, was the foremost pioneer of clinical legal education in the UK and became the founding Director of Kent Law Clinic (the first university based law clinic in the UK) in November 1973. He later became a patron of the Kent Law Campaign (together with his wife Yvette Gibson), helping to champion the £5m campaign to raise funds for the Wigoder Law Building, the new home for Kent Law Clinic. Adrian died at the age of 79 in January 2014, just under three years before the Wigoder Law Building was officially opened by the Rt Honourable the Baroness Hale of Richmond and principal benefactor The Honourable Charles Wigoder in October 2016.
At the heart of Adrian’s pedagogical method was the view that a scholarly legal education should engage with legal practice and an interdisciplinary approach to the study of law and society. In 1974 he was quoted in a national newspaper saying: ‘In a new university we must ask what we are here for. Students are not blotting paper; they must test what they are told through experience.’
The new Clinic, with solicitor Larry Grant working alongside Adrian Taylor and dozens of law students, assisted members of the public in over 1,000 cases within its first two and a half years, mainly in the fields of housing, welfare benefits, employment, consumer advice and mental health. At least three cases received national attention, especially one for patients in a local mental hospital.
Although the University withdrew support from the Clinic in 1976, law students and staff, inspired by the example that had been set, continued to provide pro bono legal support to local people through projects such as Canterbury Community Aid and Canterbury Employment Discrimination Clinic.
Kent Law Clinic was relaunched in 1992 with Professor John Fitzpatrick as Director. Adrian returned to Kent Law School in 2012 to deliver a lecture on the history of clinical legal education to a rapt audience of Kent staff and students – the full text of his lecture was reproduced in a special memorial booklet for those who attended the unveiling of his memorial plaque in the Wigoder Law Building last month.
The memorial event on Saturday 19 November was organised by Adrian’s former student Professor Richard de Friend, a former law lecturer at Kent Law School and former Pro-Vice-Chancellor in the University.
Professor de Friend said: ‘Without Adrian’s vision, his phenomenal energy and his refusal to bow to the opposition he encountered from parts of the University, and some influential local politicians, lawyers and judges, Kent would not have had its Clinic; nor have had the global reputation it now enjoys as THE pioneer of clinical legal education in this country.
‘Adrian hugely admired the way in which the Clinic had developed over recent years under its current Director Professor John Fitzpatrick and his colleagues. He, therefore, strongly supported and was a Patron of the Law Campaign. He was particularly delighted that it involved so many alumni, current students, lawyers and judges.’
More than 30 guests attended the unveiling, including members of his family, and many former students and colleagues who had worked with him in the Clinic. Professor de Friend said: ‘Guests heard from John Fitzpatrick of Adrian’s extraordinary contribution to legal education; and from Brian Ankers of the pivotal role, which Adrian and the Clinic had played in the inquiry into the neglect and abuse of patients at the St Augustine’s mental hospital in Chartham. Adrian’s widow, Yvette Gibson spoke movingly of what the Kent Law Clinic meant to Adrian before unveiling a plaque, which is prominently displayed in the new Clinic office, and which will serve as a permanent and fitting record of Adrian’s work and achievements.’
Amongst the guests who attended were also Lucy Scott-Moncrieff (the current Standards Commissioner for the House of Lords and a former student of Adrian’s) and His Honour Judge Peter Thornton QC (who recently retired as Chief Coroner of England and Wales).
In the image below (taken by Professor Fitzpatrick) guests are gathered outside the very first home of Kent Law Clinic at 2 Olive Cottages, Giles Lane on Kent’s Canterbury campus – from the left: Dan Hiester, Wade Mansell, Tom Hadden, Sarah Carter, Helen Ketchell, Nigel Hooper, Peter Thornton, Paddy Kelly, Sue Dalal, Douglas Noble, Imogen Taylor Noble, Oliver Taylor, Alan Thomson, Catherine Carpenter, Phil Fennell, Sybilla Taylor, Mike Doherty, Judy Doherty, Henrietta Taylor Priddle, Yvette Gibson, Richard de Friend, Janet Sayers, Tony Wadling, Jacquie Nunn, Steve Uglow, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, Steve Lorber, Brian Ankers, Liz Hiester, Nigel Warton, Peter Newhouse, John Wightman, and Sean Sayers.
