Laying down law in TUS

When Alison Hough decided to pursue a career in law, it didn't come as a huge surprise to her family.

"My Dad would have always said I was extremely argumentative!" she laughs. "So he wasn't surprised when I chose it as a career path in the end.

"I would have always had a strong sense of justice and injustice. If things weren't right, or the rules weren't followed, that would always have bothered me."

The Offaly native became a practising barrister on the Midlands circuit before ultimately transitioning to a full-time role in academia.

A senior law lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Hospitality at TUS in Athlone, she has recently been involved in developing the first full-time law degree in the Midlands region.

This four-year LLB, or Bachelor of Law, degree at TUS will be officially launched in January and will have its first intake of students in September.

Outside of her day job, she is actively involved in volunteering with local organisations on issues of importance to her such as the environment and helping refugees who have arrived in Ireland.

Though she now lives in Athlone, Alison's home place is Banagher. She grew up in a family of eight, with her parents, Michael and Sheila, operating JJ Hough's pub in the West Offaly town.

"I would have grown up there, in the pub, so that gave me a good background in dealing with the public," she says.

While coming to the end of her time in the La Sainte Union secondary school in Banagher, her love of animals prompted her to consider a career in environmental science or veterinary medicine. Ultimately, however, she decided to pursue law.

"I did a degree and a Masters in UCD and then I went into a solicitors' firm. I didn't really take to that at all, but any time we went to court I just found it fascinating.

"That was the most exciting part of the job for me, getting out of the office, going down to the Four Courts, and seeing the buzz around the place.

"It seemed to be filled with really interesting characters and it was a case of all human life being there. So that sold it to me."

Her route to becoming a barrister was "circuitous," as she deferred her training at King's Inns in Dublin for a year in order to work as a legal researcher at the then-Sligo IT on a project about an international environmental law, the Aarhus Convention, and how it was implemented in Ireland.

"I had done environmental law in my Masters, but that (research project) really got me on track for an interest in the environment and people's rights in relation to the planning system," she says.

"While I was at the bar, I intended to become the world's greatest environmental lawyer, but unfortunately I came out in 2008, when environment and planning practice wasn't exactly at its peak!

"There was literally zero work in it, so I ended up specialising in employment law instead. That, family law, and personal injury law, would have been my main areas of practice."

While she was a practising barrister, Alison began lecturing on the part-time law degree, taught in the evenings, at Athlone IT (now TUS). After eight years practising on the Midlands circuit, she left the bar in 2016 and moved to lecturing full-time, teaching on the four-year business and law degree in Athlone.

As part of her work, she started a 'mooting' competition in which students took part in mock court cases or trials in order to argue points of law in a competitive environment.

"It's about trying to develop their understanding of how the legal process works and what goes into how decisions are really made in the courts," she explains.

Alison was to the fore in developing the new four-year Bachelor of Law degree at TUS. The course, which was recently approved to commence in September, has been designed to reflect changes in the way law is currently practised and, in particular, the expanding role of new technology across the legal sector.

The new course will have a range of modules addressing legal technology issues and social challenges, such as climate change and environmental protection, while also offering a work placement and study abroad opportunities.

"This is a degree that's very much focused on the real world, and what the world of work will look like when the students emerge," Alison states.

Students graduating with the new degree could undertake further legal training at Blackhall, to become a solicitor, or at King's Inns, to become a barrister, but Alison says the proportion of students who go on pursue a career in these professions represents a minority of law graduates generally.

"What is much more common now is the growth of the in-house lawyer, where people gain legal qualifications and move in-house, or go into a law department, with a law degree, straight off the bat.

"There is now a broad range of businesses that have law departments, and wouldn't have had them previously. There is just so much legal regulation for businesses to comply with that it's almost essential for them to have somebody with a law qualification."

Alison's own work is currently divided between research and teaching, and she is involved in a number of projects focusing on issues of environmental justice in Ireland and at EU level.

One such project is the Access to Justice Observatory, which she started with the Environmental Justice Network of Ireland, and which examines new law proposals to assess whether or not they comply with international obligations on access to justice.

More locally, she is involved in volunteering with the recently-established Westmeath Environmental and Climate Action Network (WECAN), which is focused on local climate action. She also volunteers with New Horizon Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support in Athlone.

In addition, Alison is a member of Westmeath County Council's Planning and Transport Strategic Policy Committee, a role in which she has recently been helping to advance proposals for reducing the use of pesticides by the local authority.

If Alison's lecturing, researching and volunteering roles are busy, things are no quieter on the domestic front! She is married to Eoin McIntyre, who lectures in the Engineering Department in TUS, and they have three children, Ellen (8), Liam (4) and Ruby (1).

"It's kind of chaotic alright!" she smiles. "We're lucky that we have family-friendly working conditions, to help us juggle all of that.

"When we have time, we love getting out as a family to any of the forests around, like Portlick, in Glasson, and St John's Wood on the Roscommon side of Lough Ree.

"I also like to walk the dog, and I am learning the ukulele as well!"

Her mother, Sheila Hough, is an artist who taught in the graphic design department in Athlone IT for many years. Alison was involved in coordinating her mother's latest Arts project, called Weaving Fire, which included a book documenting the initiative.

Alison adds that she is neurodiverse, and that this is something she feels has been an advantage in her research and legal career.

"Through one of the children going through the assessment process for autism and ADHD, I became more aware of neurodiversity, and that I ticked a lot of the boxes," she explains.

"Having confirmation that I am neurodiverse helped me to understand my life and give it a context I never knew it had.

"It gave me permission and freedom to give myself accommodations for my sensory and functional needs (like earplugs in noisy environments, and taking active steps to structure projects in a way that suits my cognitive style) instead of forcing myself to push past them all the time, which was exhausting.

"In my work, it helps me to be able to see things from a different angle, and to come up with creative solutions to legal problems."

She says working with students in TUS is something that continues to give her great satisfaction.

"It's brilliant to see how much the students develop personally over the four years of a degree programme, from when they come in first and are trying to find their feet, to the point when they're leaving and have developed all these skills and personal confidence, and have grown as a person.

"It's a great process to be part of and a real privilege to see the power of education to give people their own voice."

* TUS in Athlone will be hosting a Legal Technology Conference on Tuesday, January 10, from 9.30am to 2.30pm. The conference is entitled, "New Frontiers and Tech Pioneers - Legal Tech Challenges and Opportunities," and the keynote speaker will be the former Chief Justice, Frank Clarke SC.