People

Brontie Ansell

Senior Lecturer
Essex Law School
 Brontie Ansell

Profile

Biography

Brontie is a senior lecturer in law in Essex Law School and has a particular interest in climate justice. She also works as a supervising solicitor in The Law Clinic at the university. She teaches on the land law, employment law and legal research modules. Brontie is a fellow of the HEA. As a lecturer-practitioner, Brontie specialises in housing, employment and climate justice matters when giving legal advice. Brontie gained her LLB and LLM at Sussex University in 2007. Brontie qualified as a solicitor in 2012 and spent time working at a top 60 firm in the UK as a commercial lawyer. She then moved to an international organisation working with groups of international lawyers on cross border projects. She continued to teach at university business schools including Grenoble Ecole de Management during her time in practice. She then moved to focus on her academic career, taking a position as a full time lecturer in law at the University of Brighton, then senior lecturer in 2020. Here she set up their first pro bono law clinic in 2019 and she became clinic director in 2020. Brontie was also head of department for law at the University of Brighton. Brontie is a director and co-founder of the NGO Lawyers for Nature, a CIC that is dedicated to research, education and legal advice in environmental justice. She manages the research and engagement team as well as providing pro bono legal assitance to community groups and individuals striving to protect the natural world and its non-human inhabitants. Brontie has a particular focus on providing legal advice on matters such as unlawful eviction of environmental camps, planning and judicial review, and use of the Localism Act to purchase community assets. Lawyers for Nature gained notoriety with its landmark case against Sheffield City Council where 17,500 street trees were saved from being unnecessarily destroyed by a private contractor and protestors had their charges overturned and avoided prison. Brontie is currently advising ‘Save the Middlewick Ranges’ community group on how they might save a prime biodiversity plot of 100 acres near the University of Essex that Colchester Council wish to build 1000 homes on. Brontie is currently conducting commercial research into rights of nature and the use of this theory in corporate law. In particular she is looking at board composition, voting powers and 'nature directors'. Brontie is also currently writing and editing a book on teaching climate justice in university law clinics.

Qualifications

  • LLB Law with Management University of Sussex, (2006)

  • LLM Rights, responsibility and the law University of Sussex, (2007)

Research and professional activities

Research interests

Climate Justice

Key words: Climate justice
Open to supervise

Clinical Legal Education

Pro bono legal work in law clinics and other settings Teaching clinical legal education

Key words: Clinical legal education
Open to supervise

Rights of Nature

Conceptualising rights of nature in UK and international law. Using rights of nature as a framework in corporate structures. Practice of wild law and nature law in defence of the natural world.

Key words: Rights of Nature
Open to supervise

Ecofeminism

Ecofeminism looks for connections between gender, feminism and environmental law. It is particularly concerned with how the climate and ecological emergency intersects women's lives through exploitation and displacement. It often advocates an ethic of care approach to climate justice.

Key words: Ecofeminism
Open to supervise

Teaching and supervision

Current teaching responsibilities

  • Contract Law (LW101)

  • Land Law (LW102)

  • Foundations of Property Law (LW109)

  • Employment Law and Practice (LW251)

  • Final Year Research Project (LW304)

Contact

brontie.ansell@essex.ac.uk
+44 (0) 1206 876405

Location:

4SB.5.10, Colchester Campus

More about me
Lawyers for Nature: http://www.lawyersfornature.com/

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