Who we are

Selden’s Sister is a collaboration amongst academics in the UK, championing the work of women in legal history. This includes individuals from a variety of different fields and expertise.

We aim to foster real change in the field of legal history. This is because the field itself is often thought of as a masculine, male-dominated discipline. But today legal history is more diverse than ever before, with many female scholars making significant contributions to the field. Our mission to celebrate all that’s great about legal history starts with women, but also goes beyond to showcase the range of brilliant scholarship out there.

What we do

Selden’s Sister celebrates the work of contemporary female legal historians, as well as highlighting past contributions of women to legal history. We want to ensure that legal history is a lively, friendly, and diverse field of study.

We provide networking opportunities and support for (any) people working within the field of legal history. This includes those from professors to PhDs. Thus, the intention is to create a space to share experiences, opportunities and achievements, as well as to produce research outputs.

We seek to disprove unhelpful presumptions about legal history - for example, the tacit belief that female legal historians always write about women, or that writing about women is, in itself, less valuable work. We also know that legal history is so much more than traditional, doctrinal work (although some of us definitely love that, too!).

We want to demonstrate the importance of maintaining legal history within the legal education of the UK. We’re particularly interested in making postgraduate legal history work possible, enjoyable, and successful.