(Last Updated on 29 September 2019) Just like anyone employed in a research position at a University, I receive my fair share of weekly questions and unsolicited projects from prospective PhD applicants. I reply to each email out of courtesy, as it is very rare for one of these emails to pick my interest. It is not a snobbish approach - in fact, anecdotal evidence (I have just asked 10 of my colleagues, randomly chosen) suggests that my average is rather high. The reason for this is, predictably, that most of these requests can be placed on a spectrum, at one extreme of which is the dramatically naïve proposal, which is months of work away from being interesting, and at the other is the completely irrelevant one (and I am not talking about something on a field of international law I do not even teach - I am referring to proposals in criminal law, equity and trusts, land law or any other subject I have not seen since I was an undergraduate student, if ever). There are colleagues who lau...