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Contact information
Prof. mr. Mies Westerveld
University of Amsterdam , Law Faculty
Oudemanhuispoort 4-6, room A.118
P.O. Box 1030
1000 BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands
T +31 (0)20 525 3318/3519
F + (0)20 525 3434
E M.Westerveld@uva.nl
background information
Mies Westerveld (1953) has been named Professor by Special Appointment in Legal Aid in the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The chair has been created in 2007 by the Council for Legal Aid.
Westerveld has been involved with legal aid since the beginning of her career. During her studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam she worked in a legal aid clinic for a number of years, following which she was a partner in a ‘socially-oriented’ law firm for ten years.
In 1988 she made the transition from legal aid practice to labour law research and teaching. She went to work at Utrecht University as a lecturer in Social Law, and obtained her PhD at this university with a legally comparative thesis on the development of old age and next-of-kin pensions in social security systems in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom (1880-1994).
In 1999 she was apointed senior lecturer labour law at the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute (HSI) an interdisciplinary Institute in labour law of the university of Amsterdam. She is also a fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS). Her academic career is characterized, in the HSI's tradition of excellence, by a combination of scholarly and policy-oriented research. Since 2003, her career has a political dimension as well. As a member of the Eerste Kamer (Upper House in government), she represents the PvdA (Socio Democratic Party) in the policy areas of Justice and Social Affairs & Employment.
Current research
The (improvement of ) legislation on public and private employment services
The origins and future of legal aid in the Netherlands
research interests
In the coming years, Mies Westerveld will focus her research and teaching on the foundations and (inter)national development of (subsidized) legal aid. She will advocate the development of Legal Aid as a field of study which examines the emergence of the phenomenon of legal aid in the seventies and eighties (including the appearance of legalclinics, legal aid offices, lawyer’s collectives, and other law firms that depict themselves as socially concerned), the process by which these parties became juridicially embedded in the ensuing years, and the role that legal aid plays in a contemporary context. Westerveld’s research will place emphasis on comparison with other legal regimes, and on how governments can guarantee their citizens’ constitutional rights to legal aid.
Teaching
As of 2009 bachelor students at the University of Amsterdam can follow a course on the several aspects of the legal professions (lawyers, judges, district attorney office) from a legal as well as a social perspective. Social legal aid is but one of the many aspects of this course which is offered together with the two chairholders of the Bar Association and the chairholder of the Advisory Board for Case Settlement, as well as the department of legal sociology.
For master students Westerveld offers a course of social legal aid, an interactive course which is developed and offered with the assistance of the Legal Aid Board and the Union of Social Legal Aid Lawyers.(VSAN).
Publications
Legal Aid
Where mediation and administrative law meet: mutual influence between mediation and administrative law on citizens’ access to justice in administrative law disputes (with I.S. v.d. Meene). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association, 2009
Comparative research and legal aid pilicy making: the Dutch quest vor best practices (with T. Bahta). In: Delivering effectivelegal aid services across diverse communities, ILAG Conference papers 2009
Labour law
Activating labor law and standards of 'good legislation', paper to be presented at the LSA conference of May 2010.
The individual job seeker in the sphere of contractualism (with E. Sol) in: International Journal of sociology and social policy, Volume 27, 2007, no 7/8
Shifting responsibilities, response to: T. Plantenga, new risks and the search towards an optimal division of responsibilities, AIAS annual conferende, 2005
Contractualism in employment services, a new form of welfare-state governance, Kluwer Law International, E. Sol and M. Westerveld (eds), 2005 e
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