Cambridge Study Abroad Program

Why Choose the Program?

A Great Summer in England; A Professional Door Opened On the World! Whether you are looking for an exciting change of pace after your first or second year of law school or you are considering a career in international practice, the Cambridge Summer Session may be the experience place for you.

Professional Enrichment Experiences

Our summer classes are taught by law faculty from Downing College, Cambridge; Queens’ College, Cambridge; the University of Mississippi School of Law, the University of Arkansas School of Law; the University of Nebraska College of Law; and the University of Tennessee, Winston College of Law. Outside the classroom, students can learn first-hand about the English legal system. Each summer, the program takes a day-long excursion to London to visit the Royal Courts of Justice and the Middle Temple Inn of Court. 

The Perfect Location

The Cambridge Summer Session offers a great place for professional advancement, and much, much more. With classes four days a week, there is ample time both to study and to explore your surroundings. Downing College is in the heart of the city of Cambridge, an hour north of London. Cambridge is a vibrant, beautiful combination of the ancient and the thoroughly modern, including medieval churches and colleges, dance clubs, lush green parks, riverside pubs, cinemas, and shopping centers, as well as a centuries-old open market. Rural England—charming villages, peaceful streams, sheep meadows—is only a few minutes from Downing’s gates. All of Britain, as well as Ireland, Paris, and Amsterdam, are within reach for the three-day weekends that our four-day class schedule permits.

Cambridge University and Downing College — Centers of Academic Excellence

Cambridge University and its colleges together constitute one of the most important—and beautiful—academic institutions in the world. Founded in 1209, the University is over 800 years old. Sir Isaac Newton, Oliver Cromwell, John Milton, Charles Darwin, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson, John Maynard Keynes, A.A. Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh), Stephen Hawking, Prince Charles, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie and many Nobel Prize winners have all been members of Cambridge colleges. Along with Oxford, Cambridge remains the premier university in the United Kingdom. Both the University as a whole and the law faculty are rated among the best in the world. Downing College, our host institution for the Cambridge Summer Session, is renowned for producing excellent lawyers and legal scholars. From Frederic Maitland, the great English legal historian, to Sir Robert Jennings, Past President of the International Court of Justice, Downing can claim as its own many people who have played leading roles in establishing Cambridge University’s distinguished reputation in the law. On the lighter side, John Cleese, of Monty Python fame, also studied law while a student at Downing (although he apparently came no closer to practice than his role as a barrister in A Fish Called Wanda, for which he wore a Downing College tie in one scene). 

Convenient, Worry-Free Living And Studying

Your home for the Cambridge Summer Session will be in Downing College accommodations. You will have a private room with bathroom facilities shared with another student. Towels and linens are provided by the college, as are housekeeping services during the week.

Room and partial board at Downing is a package arrangement. It includes breakfast and lunch, Monday through Thursday during the program, as well as a reception on the first night of the program, and the semi-formal Final Dinner. It is not possible to obtain only a room or only partial board. All students are expected to live in Downing College, absent documented extenuating circumstances.

Classes are held in Downing College rooms or in a nearby Cambridge University classrooms. The college library is available during the day on weekdays. Downing College’s coin laundry, computer room, tennis court and playing field may be used and there are numerous sports, restaurant, pub and entertainment facilities within a short walk of the college.

The facilities at Downing College, and in many parts of the city of Cambridge present some difficulties for persons with certain disabilities. For instance, many places can be reached only by narrow stairways. Persons with special needs should contact the resident director, Professor William Berry at wwberry@go.olemiss.edu or (662) 915-6859, prior to enrollment to ascertain whether suitable accommodation is possible.

Long History at Downing College

The program has spent over forty summers at Downing College. The program continues to operate as a consortium between the University of Mississippi, University of Arkansas, University of Nebraska, and University of Tennessee.

The Cambridge Summer Session, in existence since 1983, was one of the first programs to be approved under the ABA’s foreign summer program standards. It currently meets all applicable ABA and AALS requirements. Credit hours earned are routinely transferred to other ABA-approved law schools and to recognized Canadian law schools (some Canadian law schools will not award credits for U.S. summer programs). Acceptance of any credit or grade for any course taken in the program is subject to approval by the student’s home law school. Interested students should inquire at their home schools about the transfer of credits and about the amount of residence credit that may be obtained, consistent with ABA Standard 305, Interpretation 4.

Courses are offered for one or two semester hours credit; students must register for three or four classes (minimum of 5 credit hours; maximum of 7 credit hours). See the class schedule for class meeting times. No classes are scheduled on Friday, but there will be a group excursion to London on one Friday.  Examinations will occur at the end of the term. Students are expected to attend all class meetings in the courses in which they are registered and to prepare for class diligently. All courses are graded on the 4.0 grading system used at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Students transferring credits to other law schools will usually find that grades of 2.0 or higher will be accepted for credit, but that the home law school will not average the Cambridge grades as part of the student’s overall GPA. Students should consult their home school’s administration about its policy.

Contact Information

The resident program director, Professor Will Berry, can be reached by e-mail at wwberry@go.olemiss.edu.

Written communication should be addressed to:

Cambridge Summer Session
The University of Mississippi School of Law
481 Chucky Mullins Drive University, MS 38677

In Cambridge, Professor Berry has an office at Downing College and coordinates the program with the domestic staff of the college and the Cambridge faculty. He and the Downing staff will be available to assist students with school-related or personal needs. The Head Porter and his staff in the Porters’ Lodge can usually resolve most day-to-day problems.

Courses

Course Descriptions:

International Law (2 credits), Prof. Federica Paddeu

The basic introductory course in the field–the nature, scope, sources and jurisdiction of international law, the law of treaties, the doctrine of state responsibility, international dispute resolution and other topics.

International Perspectives on Defamation and Privacy Law (2 credits), Prof. Alex Long

The number of defamation claims in the United States has skyrocketed in recent years.  This rise has occurred at a time when judges and scholars are increasingly questioning whether the defamation rules that were created decades (if not centuries) ago are still workable in the modern age.  New technology has also raised a host of new legal issues involving the right to privacy.  These two fields — defamation law and invasion of privacy — often overlap, a reality that raises additional challenges for litigants, judges, and policymakers.  The United Kingdom and European Union countries are dealing with these same issues (sometimes adopting different approaches than in the U.S.).  This course will explore the common law and statutory rules relevant to defamation and privacy law in the modern age.

Comparative Cine-Law (2 credits), Prof. Ryan Sullivan

This course will offer a comparative exploration of legal concepts and the practice of law through American and international TV and film. The course will utilize themes and scenes from popular movies and television programs to explore and prompt discussion on a wide breadth of internationally universal legal concepts and practical legal skills, including: tort law, contract law, family law, criminal law, legal ethics, evidence, alternative dispute resolution, client counseling, trial preparation, trial procedure, law practice management, and the exercise of professional and legal judgment.

Comparative Employment Discrimination (2 credits), Prof. Blair Druhan Bullock

How do workplace protections against discriminatory behavior vary in different countries? This course will explore that question. We will survey laws from throughout the world that protect employees from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, and other protected categories. Our point of comparison will be the caselaw interpreting United States federal statutes, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Wrongful Convictions: A Domestic & Comparative Overview (2 credits), Prof. Tucker Carrington

This course will begin with an overview of criminal defense work generally and then pivot to consider the incidence and phenomena of wrongful convictions. This consideration will focus on causes of and solutions to wrongful convictions, as well as how wrongful convictions, or claims of post-conviction factual innocence, are conceived of and treated in various places other than the United States’ criminal justice system. Students should expect to gain from the course not just a basic working understanding of wrongful convictions, but in addition a more thorough and grounded assessment of systemic problems—policy, evidentiary, procedural and so on—and how to remedy them.

International Advocacy and Dispute Resolution (2 credits), Prof. Brendan Plant

The last two decades have witnessed an explosion of activity in the area of international dispute settlement. As public international law has broadened in scope and deepened in content – providing today a more detailed system for the regulation of issues like international trade and investment, human rights, environmental protection, territorial sovereignty and maritime activity – so too have new institutions and procedures emerged for the litigation of international disputes. This course aims to survey several of the most important methods available for settling international disputes today and to identify commonalities and differences in their procedures, substance, emphasis and effectiveness. The course will look at the demands facing advocates appearing before a number of prominent international institutions, including the International Court of Justice, investment arbitral tribunals, the World Trade Organisation, international human rights courts, both regional and global, and litigation under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea.

Law and Literature (1 credit), Prof. Will Berry

This is a course about the stories we tell at the intersection of law and literature. How do stories about law translate into fiction? How does our understanding of fiction shape our law? The focus of the class is primarily on cases and short stories related to criminal law, sports law, law and society, and the rule of law.

Professor Will Berry is Associate Dean for Research and Montague Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi, where he serves as the Director of the Cambridge Summer Abroad Program. He teaches criminal law and sports & entertainment law, and he is the author of textbooks and numerous law review articles on those subjects. Before coming to Ole Miss, he clerked for the Honorable Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr. in the Middle District of Tennessee and the Honorable Gilbert S. Merritt, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, as well as practiced law in Washington, D.C. with the firm of Shea & Gardner (now Goodwin Procter). He received his B.A. in English from the University of Virginia, his J.D. from Vanderbilt University, and his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. He has been leading the Cambridge program since 2012.

 Professor Blair Druhan Bullock is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Her interdisciplinary scholarship and research focus on employment law, empirically analyzing the impact of regulations, legislation, judicial decisions and agency guidance on the filing and outcome of legal actions and on societal outcomes. Bullock's teaching and mentorship has been recognized by students, faculty, and administrators. The graduating classes of 2024 and 2025 elected her to receive the Lewis E. Epley Jr. Professor of the Year Award for Excellence in Teaching. Prior to joining Arkansas, Bullock clerked for Judge Stephen A. Higginson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and spent time in private practice representing national corporations in civil litigation.

Professor Tucker Carrington is the founding director of the Mississippi Innocence Project (MIP) and Clinic at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Prior to coming to Ole Miss, Professor Carrington was an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown Law Center, a trial and supervising attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and a visiting clinical professor at Georgetown. Professor Carrington is a member of the American Law Institute, co-author with Radley Balko of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist (Public Affairs 2018), and author of the forthcoming ‘Look Away’: History, Race, and the Search for a Fair Trial in the Most Prosecuted Case in American Law (Univ. of California Press, 2027).

Alex Long is the Williford Gragg Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law.  He served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the College of Law from 2014 – 2018.  Professor Long teaches and writes in the areas of Torts, Professional Responsibility, Employment Law, and Disability Law. His scholarship in these areas has been published in numerous journals, including the Northwestern Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and Emory Law Journal, and has been frequently cited by courts.  He is also the co-author of Professional Responsibility in the Life of the Lawyer (West Academic); Developing Professional Skills:  Professional Responsibility (West Academic); Torts:  A Modern Approach (Carolina Academic Press); and Advanced Torts (Carolina Academic Press).  His most recent book, Professional Wrestling and the Law (McFarland), was published in 2024.  Professor Long has received the law school’s Harold C. Warner Outstanding Teacher Award; the W. Allen Separk Faculty Scholarship Award; the Carden Award for Outstanding Achievement in Scholarship; and the Carden Award for Outstanding Service to the Institution.  He is a contributing author to the Knoxville Bar Association’s “Schooled in Ethics” column and regularly speaks on legal ethics issues to various groups.  Before entering academia, Professor Long was an associate in the labor group of the Clarksburg, West Virginia office of Steptoe & Johnson.  He received his law degree from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he was Topics & Research Editor for the William & Mary Law Review.

Federica Paddeu is the Derek Bowett Fellow at Queens’ College Cambridge, where she serves at Deputy Senior Tutor and Director of Studies, teaching and supervising Criminal Law and International Law students. She is also an Affiliated Lecturer in Law at the University of Cambridge. Prof. Paddeu’s current research focuses on the law of State responsibility, in particular on the general defences that States can invoke against claims that they have breached their international obligations. These defences are included in Chapter V of Part One of the International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, adopted in 2001. Despite the decades-long work of the ILC on the Articles, two fundamental conceptual aspects of the defences were not addressed in any detail: the conceptualisation of defences as a category of the law of responsibility, and the classification of the recognised defences into justifications and excuses. Her monograph, Justification and Excuse in International Law: Concept and Theory of General Defences (CUP, 2016), examines these two questions. It puts forward a conceptualisation of defences as autonomous rules, and analytically explains the interplay between defences and obligations by reference to a normative-conflicts framework. Equally, it proposes a classification of the six recognised defences into justifications (consent, self-defence, countermeasures) and excuses (force majeure, distress), and discusses the difficulties in categorising others (state of necessity). In addition to the law of responsibility, she is interested in other aspects of general international law (such as the sources of international law); the law on the use of force, in particular the right of self-defence (including its exercise in the case of attacks by non-State actors); and the history of international law, especially the 19th century and the early 20th century.

Brendan Plant is Hopkins–Parry Fellow and Director of Studies in Law (LLM) at Downing College, Cambridge and Affiliated Lecturer in Law at the University of Cambridge. Having practised as a solicitor in leading commercial law firms in Sydney, Australia and London, Dr. Plant became a Research Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London, where he co-authored the book 'Evidence before the International Court of Justice.’ He is also a barrister with a Twenty Essex in London. Brendan has acted in cases before a variety of international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the UN Committee Against Torture, and the East African Court of Justice. He has also acted in cases before national courts, including the UK Supreme Court and the High Court of Australia. He has held research fellowships in Germany at the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, and he has acted as consultant to numerous international NGOs, including Amnesty International and Greenpeace. Dr. Plant holds undergraduate honours degrees in Economics and Law from the University of Sydney, a Master’s in Human Rights from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He lectures international human rights law, public international law and English private law, and he pursues research in international dispute settlement, territorial sovereignty, human rights and international legal theory.

Professor Ryan Sullivan is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law where he has taught and directed multiple clinical programs, including: the Civil Clinic, Housing Justice Clinic, Estate Planning Clinic, Clean Slate Project, Legislative Project, Veterans Advocacy Project, Family Law Project, Pro Bono Project, Wills for Heroes Program and others.  Sullivan also co-directs the Pretrial Litigation Program and co-administers the Litigation Skills Program. Sullivan’s scholarship focuses primarily on access to justice issues, including legislative reform, criminal record rehabilitation, the use of AI to close the access to justice gap, housing justice, and civil rights. Professor Sullivan is also the author of Nebraska’s treatise on Civil Practice. Sullivan received his B.A. from Colorado State University while completing his enlistment in the U.S. Army, and his Master’s from Pennsylvania Western. He earned his J.D. at the University of Nebraska College of Law where he served as an editor of the Nebraska Law Review and chair of the Nebraska Moot Court Board, and also competed on the National Trial Team. Professor Sullivan has received several awards for his advocacy and pro bono work, including the Association of American Law Schools’ Access to Justice Award and the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Leader Award.

The Financial Aid Budget Outlined below is a breakdown of expenses for the Cambridge Summer Program

*Board is Breakfast and Lunch, Monday-Thursday only; estimate based on current exchange rate.

Financial Aid

Stafford Student Loans and Supplemental Loans for students are available to eligible U.S. law students who enroll in the Cambridge Summer Session. Using a “consortium agreement” between the University of Mississippi and the financial aid office at the student’s home law school is recommended. These agreements allow students to deal directly with the financial aid officers on their campuses. Interested students should talk to the staff in their financial aid office.

Neither the University of Mississippi School of Law, Downing College, nor any of the consortium law schools are responsible for a student’s medical care or expenses in the event of illness or accident. Students must have health insurance that covers them while in the United Kingdom and any other country they intend to visit in connection with the Cambridge Summer Session. Proof of such coverage may be requested by the program administration.

Students who cancel their enrollment prior to April 15 will receive a full refund of tuition and fees, minus the nonrefundable $295 deposit. Refunds for cancellations or withdrawals after that date will not be made, absent documented emergency circumstances. The University of Mississippi School of Law reserves the right to cancel this program should it become necessary for any reason. In the event that this occurs, notices will be sent to all applicants, and all tuition payments will be completely refunded.