Philip Ells has been Head of the School of Law since 2015. He is engaged in teaching across a number of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level and is primarily responsible for the management and performance of the School of Law. His main research interests are in civil litigation and in particular third party funding on which he has lectured to legal professionals within the UK and to postgraduate students in Japan.
Philip began his career in commercial legal practice in the City specialising in commercial litigation and fraud. He left the UK to take up the position at People’s Lawyer of Tuvalu, Central Pacific for over two years from 1993 before returning to the UK to work in the charity sector as the Legal and Educational Officer of the whistleblowing charity Protect (formerly known as Public Concern at Work) and high street law firms.
Philip carried out consultancy work in the Pacific, focussing on land rights within Tuvalu for the Asian Development Bank, and on logging and legal access with the Solomon Islands. In 1997 Philip worked for the OSCE as an future municipality adjudicator in its Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina following the end of the civil war.
He has been at UWL since 2004.
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Qualifications
BA (Hons) English Literature, University of York
Common Professional Examination, College of Law, Chester
Solicitors Law Finals’ Examination, College of Law, Chester
Admitted as Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales
LLM, Human Rights and Civil Liberties, Leicester University
Admitted to the Bar in Tuvalu, Pacific, 1993 and to the Bar in the Republic of Kiribati, Pacific, 1994
Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning, Thames Valley University -
Memberships
The Law SocietyAcademic member: Association of Litigation FundersFellow of Higher Education AcademyMember of CHULS – Committee of Heads of UK Law SchoolsNon-Executive member of Middlesex Law Society
Teaching
I have been Head of the School of Law since 2015. I am engaged in teaching across a number of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level and am primarily responsible for the management and performance of the School. My main research interests are in civil litigation and in particular third party funding on which I have lectured to legal professionals within the UK and to postgraduate students in Japan.
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Research and publications
Book and book chapters
Ells, P. (2006) Where the hell is Tuvalu? How I became the lawyer in the fourth smallest country in the world, Virgin Publishing Limited. ISBN-13: 978-0753511305
Ells, P. & Dehn, G. (2001) Whistleblowing in the Social Services. In Open University Course Reader on Social Care: Social Work and the Law, Open University publications.
Ells, P. (2000) The People’s Lawyer, Virgin Publishing Limited. ISBN 0–7535–0491-X.
Reports and other papers
Legal Access and Logging in the Solomon Islands, Forests Monitor, September 1996, two month visit to Pacific, investigation and report into the practice of logging by foreign entities, with recommendations for legal reform
Consultant Legal Advisor, Asian Development Bank, Proposals for Improvement of system of land tenure management, valuation and determination of land disputes, Dec 1995 – Oct 1996
Tuvalu Country Paper in ‘Women and the Law in the Pacific’, International Commission of Jurists, 1995
Ells, P. (2019), The Self – Regulation of Third Party Funding – New Civitas – April 2019, New vistas: Volume 5 Issue 2
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Conferences
Presentations
Ells, P. (2016), Third party funding in International Arbitration, Symposium at University of Nagoya, Japan
Ells, P. (2017), Regulation of Third Party Funding, Symposium at University of Nagoya, Japan
Ells, P. (2012) Third Party Funding in Civil Litigation: Friend or Foe? CPD Course for Legal Professionals, Ealing Law School, University of West London, London, UK.
