According to a statement on their Instagram, the Law Colloquium at Trinity has entered an “emergency” session as of Thursday, June 16th. The Law Colloquium was recently told to cease and desist all use of Trinity branding for their activities and warned that any Trinity students on the committee would face disciplinary action.
They said that the committee had been “restored” and “is continuing its work” after declaring “a state of emergency given the severe threat to [their] organisation’s existence”. They added that, “For safety reasons” the names of committee members would not be disclosed.
They went on to “strongly condemn” the actions of the law professor, Oran Doyle, who sent the initial email.
They have also launched a GoFundMe campaign to “support the growth and development of the Colloquium, ensuring that [they] can continue to provide value to students and the wider academic community”.
Doyle provided the following statement to the University Times:
“The Law School has undertaken a review of governance structures at law affiliated student organisations. The general expectation of student organisations at Trinity is that they be recognised under the capitated bodies, such as CSC or Trinity Sport Union. There have traditionally been three capitated CSC-approved societies associated with law: Law Soc, FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centre), and ELSA (European Law Students Association).
The Trinity College Law Review (TCLR) has a semi-autonomous status under the Law Soc, which ensures that its accounts are subject to CSC oversight. In addition to these recognised bodies, The Eagle has been fully autonomous but has agreed in principle with the Law Soc to have the same semi-autonomous status as the TCLR. These arrangements will hopefully be in place for the next academic year.
A similar proposal was made to the law student colloquium to regularise their standing but was rejected.
The Trinity students identified as committee members of the colloquium were directed to ensure that the colloquium ceased to claim any formal association with Trinity College Dublin. The association with Trinity continues to be claimed. 12 of the 13 committee members have resigned.
There is a concern that an organisation continues to present itself as a Trinity organisation when it has been directed not to and has rejected reasonable suggestions to come within standard Trinity governance structures. There is a further concern that the organisation is fundraising on foot of that status when (a) there is no Trinity oversight of its accounts and (b) it is not permitted to hold events in Trinity.
The Law School is working actively with other student organisations and interested students to ensure that the activities previously undertaken by the law student colloquium continue next year. The Law School will financially support those activities.
The Law School has no wish to be involved in the oversight of student organisations. The recent work with law student organisations was prompted by a desire to ensure best practice in governance and financial oversight. It is hoped that once the current issues are worked through, the wide range of law affiliated student organisations will continue their good work under the standard oversight of CSC, with support as appropriate from the Law School.”
The Law Colloquium’s full statement is as follows:
“Despite the significant and ongoing pressure, we are proud to announce that the Committee of the TCD Law Student Colloquium has been restored and is continuing its work.
We warmly thank everyone who reached out, joined us, and supported us during this difficult time; your courage means everything.
Following a formal Committee meeting and in accordance with our Constitution, we have declared a state of emergency given the severe threat to our organisation’s existence. For safety reasons, and given our concerns arising from the conduct of Professor Oran Doyle, we will not be disclosing the names of new members at this time.
The Chair of the Colloquium remains Lukian Pudliak. We express our unconditional support for his RESISTANCE in the face of 3 complaints submitted personally by Professor Oran Doyle to the Junior Dean’s Office, the freezing of his academic progression, and explicit threats demanding he cease all Colloquium activity.
We strongly condemn the actions of Professor Oran Doyle and other persons involved in intimidating students who made a free and voluntary choice to join the Сolloquium; they did nothing wrong. This behaviour falls gravely short of Trinity’s standards and has deeply humiliated our members, which is wholly unacceptable. We sincerely hope that no one else will ever have to experience anything like this.
We took a 14-day pause to allow for de-escalation. Regrettably, we have observed only that everything has become even worse. We have done nothing wrong and have no desire to intensify this. We simply wish to continue our work in peace. We are preparing a full summary of what happened and will keep you informed about further updates during this and next week.
We are grateful to have this platform; individually, we could not have stood with this issue alone. If you have experienced similar treatment, please reach out via our website. Your voice will be heard and treated with the utmost care, respect and confidentiality.
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— 19th Emergency Committee, TCD Law Student Colloquium”
This article was updated on June 18th, 2026 at 12:50 pm to include Oran Doyle’s full statement.
