Global Forum 2018

The winning and runner-up teams of PILnet’s 2017 Law for Change Student Competition were invited to PILnet’s 2018 Global Forum to talk about their projects, their competition experience and the challenges they faced along the way.

In 2017, PILnet organized the inaugural Law for Change Student Competition in Hong Kong, in which students were given the opportunity to develop innovative solutions using the law to address local social justice needs, under the guidance of legal mentors. This workshop explored how initiatives like this can create opportunities to educate, empower, and mobilize law students to be change-makers in their communities, and also how the legal community can come together to provide guidance and mentorship for emerging lawyers who are interested and committed to using their legal expertise to bring forth social change.

The panel was made up of participants of PILnet’s ‘Law for Change’ student competition, which was held in Hong Kong last year. They were part of two different teams – the first, Outreach Legal Talks Initiative (OUTLET), which had won the competition and the second, Decoding Law, a runner up project that went on to win the global legal hackathon competition!

While reflecting on the experience, the participants expressed how much they valued and benefitted from the opportunity to engage directly with legal mentors to gather their insights. Beyond receiving practical feedback on their projects, the participants also learned more about law and pro bono in practice. This competition trained and encouraged students to perform more outreach work to connect with the local community and civil society, and prompted students to utilize both their creativity and legal knowledge to devise new solutions to drive change in society.

Moderator: Catherine Cheung, PILnet, Hong Kong

Speakers:

  • Hansika Agrawal, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Karen Fan, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Soyoung Kim, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Alison Li, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Veronika Kramar Mandelj, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Sally Yiu, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Marcus Yuen, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong