Patrick Schmidt

Simon Halliday

This book provides students and scholars with a candid look at how empirical research projects actually happen. Focusing on the interdisciplinary Law and Society field, more than twenty interviews with authors of classic projects - from sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, law, and history - the chapters are unique in their honesty. They help readers to understand the choices, challenges, and uncertainty that go into even some of the best research projects.

Reflections on Methods and Practices

Conducting Law and Society Research

Peter Black and the mystery of Craven's Lake

Simon Halliday has tackled everything that life has thrown at him, be it on the rugby field, or in the City. He has been hit hard in his time, now he is hitting back. In his candid and lucidly written autobiography City Centre, Simon Halliday, a former England rugby international takes the reader on a roller-coaster trip along Twickenham’s corridors of power and lifts the lid on the departure of, not one, but two chief executives, as the game’s rulers fought among themselves for control of the RFU. He is scathing about England’s descent from World Cup heroes to zeroes after proving they were the best in 2003. He slams the game’s rulers for driving Sir Clive Woodward out of the game and for eschewing the opportunity to welcome him back to Twickenham a few years later. Halliday transcended the world of amateur and professional and he delivers a crushing analysis of the twin pressures of existing at the top of business and international sport. In addition to analysing his rugby career, City Centre is also a personal account of the fateful morning in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis. Except that Halliday tells it from the inside, on the trading floor where he worked with thousands of others. Halliday also details the truth behind the ruthless mid-90s merger of the Swiss banking giants UBS and SBC, and the appalling behaviour of Crédit Suisse in their ill-fated acquisition of his beloved DLJ at the end of the tech boom. It was while he was playing for Bath’s all conquering rugby team of the 1980s that the double Oxford Blue in cricket and rugby suffered a horrific injury a week before his England debut. He describes the injury and talks movingly about how he was able to put this into perspective while lying in his hospital bed. That he played again is testament to his indomitable will – and his reward was to wear the Red Rose of England. In City Centre Halliday talks about some of the greatest players he has played with and against, and provides a shrewd analysis of the genius coach Jack Rowell, who transformed the fortunes of Bath, turning them from a minor West Country club into one of the best outfits in Europe. There are also assessments of Will Carling, a close friend, and the brilliant Jerry Guscott. Today Halliday is a parton of Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) and Help For Heroes and used his business and sporting profile to raise awareness of both these charities. This book does not pull punches. Halliday talks honestly and unashamedly about key people in his playing and business careers. This is an open book – just like the man.

City Centre

Stefano Civitarese Matteucci

This collection of essays examines the promise and limits of social rights in Europe in a time of austerity. Presenting in the first instance five national case studies, representing the biggest European economies (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), it offers an account of recent reforms to social welfare and the attempts to resist them through litigation. The case studies are then used as a foundation for theory-building about social rights. This second group of chapters develops theory along two complementary lines: first, they explore the dynamics between social rights, public law, poverty and welfare in times of economic crisis; second, they consider the particular significance of the European context for articulations of, and struggles over, social rights. Employing a range and depth of expertise across Europe, the book constitutes a timely and highly significant contribution to socio-legal scholarship about the character and resilience of social rights in our national and regional constitutional settings.

SOCIAL RIGHTS IN EUROPE IN AN AGE OF AUSTERITY

David S. Cowan

Caroline Hunter

Paul Maginn

Lisa Naylor

Why do most welfare applicants fail to challenge adverse decisions despite a continuing sense of need? The book addresses this severely under-researched and under-theorized question. Using English homelessness law as their case study, the authors explore why homeless applicants did - but more often did not - challenge adverse decisions by seeking internal administrative review. They draw out from their data a list of the barriers to the take up of grievance rights. Further, by combining extensive interview data from aggrieved homeless applicants with ethnographic data about bureaucratic decision-making, they are able to situate these barriers within the dynamics of the citizen-bureaucracy relationship. Additionally, they point to other contexts which inform applicants' decisions about whether to request an internal review. Drawing on a diverse literature - risk, trust, audit, legal consciousness, and complaints - the authors lay the foundations for our understanding of the (non-)emergence of administrative disputes.

Simon Halliday

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