Dr Rob Wilks
| Biography | Originally from Newport, South Wales, I am a Deaf British Sign Language (BSL) user and teach through the medium of BSL. I teach employment law and legal skills on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at UWE. I have a BA (Hons) degree in History, and commenced my legal training by completing the Graduate Diploma in Law in 2002 and the Legal Practice Course in 2003. I qualified as a solicitor in 2007 following a secondment to South West London Law Centres and Hugh James Solicitors whilst employed by the Royal Association for Deaf people. I was previously Senior Lecturer and Legal Practice Course Leader at the University of South Wales, and Lecturer in Professional Law at Cardiff University. On an academic level, I achieved a LLM with Distinction in Law of Employment Relations with the University of Leicester in 2007 and was awarded a doctorate in 2020 by the University of Leicester exploring whether equality law is working for Deaf people and whether sign language recognition will achieve transformative equality. |
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| Research Interests | I have an interest in equality and anti-discrimination law as it relates to deaf people, language law and sign language recognition and am currently focused on developing Deaf Legal Theory as a new perspective in legal jurisprudence. I am involved in deaf education research, having published two reports with Rachel O’Neill at the University of Edinburgh looking at the impact of the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 and comparing Welsh- and Gaelic-medium education with that of BSL, putting forward recommendations on how to ensure BSL is taught as part of the new Curriculum for Wales. We are currently looking at ethical dilemmas for Teachers of Deaf Children and Young People and in the process of publishing our research findings. |
| Teaching and Learning | I currently teach Employment Law on all undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. |
| Scopus Author ID | 57816888000 |
| PhD Supervision Availability | Yes |
| PhD Topics | Deaf Legal Theory deaf education disability discrimination equality and anti-discrimination law language law sign language recognition |