Beyond the Visual Theorising Legal Design for Accessibility and Inclusion through an Ability Capitalism Lens
Date
2025
Authors
Williams, Clare
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Abstract
What can a theory of disability bring to our understanding of design-based approaches in legal education? In this presentation, I will extend my chapter on Design in Legal Education by exploring how ‘legal design’ or ‘designerly ways’ can be incorporated into research methods and teaching. I will explore the potential of prefigurative counterfactuals to construct alternative realities through which we can explore ways of doing, talking, and thinking about law, economy, and society. I will take insights from my latest research on disability and my theory of Ability Capitalism to interrogate current shortcomings in how we theorize design-based approaches to legal education, and I will make two suggestions. Firstly, I propose that disability, specifically an Ability Capitalism lens, can help us identify pathways towards a deeper theoretical and conceptual engagement with a designerly lens, while secondly, this is both urgent and necessary for inclusion, accessibility and representation in education and beyond.
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law, disability, legal design, legal education, Ability Capitalism, accessibility, representation, prefigurative counterfactuals