Introduction

"Concept of law" redirects here. For the book by H. L. A. Hart, see The Concept of Law.
Philosophers of law ask "what is law, and what should it be?"
Jurisprudence is the science, study, and theory of law. It includes principles behind law
that make the law. Scholars of jurisprudence, also known as jurists or legal theorists
(including legal philosophers and social theorists of law), hope to obtain a deeper
understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems, and of legal
institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the
first principles of the natural law, civil law, and the law of nations.[1] General
jurisprudence can be divided into categories both by the type of question scholars seek
to answer and by the theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how
those questions are best answered. Contemporary philosophy of law, which deals with
general jurisprudence, addresses problems in two rough groups: [2]
1. Problems internal to law and legal systems.
2. Problems of law as a particular social institution as law relates to the larger
political and social situation in which it exists.
Answers to these questions come from four primary schools of thought in general
jurisprudence:[2][3]

Natural law is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of
legislative rulers. The foundations of law are accessible through reason and it is
from these laws of nature that human-created laws gain whatever force they have. [2]

Legal positivism, by contrast to natural law, holds that there is no necessary

connection between law and morality and that the force of law comes from some
basic social facts. Legal positivists differ on what those facts are. [4]

Legal realism is a third theory of jurisprudence which argues that the real world
practice of law is what determines what law is; the law has the force that it does
because of what legislators, lawyers and judges do with it.

Critical legal studies are a younger theory of jurisprudence that has developed
since the 1970s. It is primarily a negative thesis that holds that the law is largely
contradictory, and can be best analyzed as an expression of the policy goals of the
dominant social group.[5]

Also of note is the work of the contemporary philosopher of law Ronald Dworkin who
has advocated a constructivist theory of jurisprudence that can be characterized as a
middle path between natural law theories and positivist theories of general
jurisprudence.[6]

A further relatively new field is known as therapeutic jurisprudence, concerned with the
impact of legal processes on wellbeing and mental health.

Analytical Law School

Many times jurists have made their efforts to define law, its sources and
nature. For the purpose of understanding their points of view, the jurists are
divided on the basis of their approaches to law. This division has been helpful
in understanding the evolution of legal philosophy.
One class of these jurists came to be known as "positivists" or "analysts" who
had little to do with vague and abstract notions of natural law. These were
the believers of Analytical or Positive School, who propounded positivism.
The term 'positivism' was invented by Auguste Comte, a French thinker.
The exponents of this school are neither concerned with the past nor with
the future of law but with the law as it exists, i.e. with law 'as it is' (Positrum).
Its founder was John Austin and hence it is also called Austinian School.
The purpose of analytical jurisprudence is to analyse the first principles of
law without reference either to their historical origin or development or their
validity. Another purpose is to gain an accurate and intimate understanding
of the fundamental working concepts of all legal reasoning.
The positive law takes law as the command of the sovereign. It puts
emphasis on legislation as the source of law. It regards law as a closed
system of pure facts from which all norms and values are excluded.
Importance:
-Bought about precision in legal thinking
-Provided us with clear and scientific terminology
-Excluded external considerations which fall outside the scope of law
Chief exponents:
1. Bentham
2. Austin
3. Salmond
4. Holland
5. Hart

Apart from these, this school received encouragement from Europe from
Kelson.
This article primarily deals with Bentham, Austin, Pound and Salmond to
understand the evolution of this school.
Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was a lifelong former of law. According to him, no reform of
substantive law could be brought about without a reform of its original form
and structure.
Bentham advocated an imperative theory of law, in which key concepts were
sovereignty and command, similar to Austins postulation. However he drew
a distinction between social desirability and logical necessity, which Austin
did not. The model of Austin was the criminal statute. But Bentham
undertook rational reconstruction which is wider that the model of Austin.
In his book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, he has
moved to ask questions about the penal and civil code. While investigating
its answers, he was led to Laws in General. What was originally conceived as
an appendix developed into a major consideration which was finished in
1782 and published in 1945 as The Limits of Jurisprudence Defined.
Every law according to Bentham has a directive and a sanctioned part. Here,
directive aspect refers to the aspects of sovereignty will towards an act
situation and the sanctioned aspect refers to the force of a law. The law in
force is dependent upon motivation for obedience: political, physical, moral,
religious and threats of punishments and rewards.
Sanctions are provided by subsidiary law but they themselves require a
further set of subsidiary addressed to judges to prevent any further evil.
Austin
Law as defined by Austin is the aggregate of the rules set by men as political
superior or sovereign to men as politically subject.
Criticism:
1. Law is not a command.
2. Law is not a duty, it is rather enabling than restrictive.

3. This definition does not cover customs and international law.

4. Also his definition ignores the social aspect of law and psychological
factors which secure its obedience.
5. It has no universal application.
Merits:
1. This definition lays down precise boundaries within which jurisprudence is
to work.
2. This definition completely applies to English law.
Pound
The definition of law according to Pound gave a valuable approach and
opened new fields of study in context of social problems. According to him,
law is a social institution to satisfy social wants.
The only criticism received to his definition was that it gave no heed to
nature and character of law.
The merit of this definition was that it talks about policy and progress as well
as theory of justice.
Salmond
Law as per Salmond is that it is body of principles recognised and applied by
State in the administration of justice.
Criticism:
1. He confuses justice with law: Law is actually in force whether it is evil or
good, whereas justice is the ideal founded in moral nature of man.
2. Law is defined in terms of purpose: Law serves many ends and by
confining it only to pursuit of justice, Salmond has narrowed the field of law.
3. Courts not legislation: conventions are not included in this definition
because they are not enforced by Courts. Meaning of courts is not defined.
Certain areas of law, like customs, international law etc. can also not be
incorporated since even these are not enforceable by law.

Merits:
This definition bought about a change in analytical positivist view.
1. It expanded the boundaries of jurisprudence that was narrowed by Austin.
2. It gave importance to courts.
3. By including its purpose and emphasizing the role of Court in its
enforcement, he gave law a practical shape.

Etymology[edit]
The English word is based on the Latin maxim jurisprudentia: juris is the genitive form
of jus meaning "law", and prudentia means "prudence" (also: discretion, foresight,
forethought, circumspection; refers to the exercise of good judgment, common sense,
and even caution, especially in the conduct of practical matters). The word is first
attested in English in 1628,[7] at a time when the word prudence had the meaning of
"knowledge of or skill in a matter". The word may have come via the
French jurisprudence, which is attested earlier.
History of Jurisprudence[edit]
Ancient Indian jurisprudence is available in various Dharmastra texts starting from the
Dharmasutra of Bhodhayana. Jurisprudence already had this meaning [citation
needed]
in Ancient Rome even if at its origins the discipline was a (periti) in the jus of mos
maiorum (traditional law), a body of oral laws and customs verbally transmitted "by
father to son". Praetors established a workable body of laws by judging whether or not
singular cases were capable of being prosecuted either by the edicta, the annual
pronunciation of prosecutable offense, or in extraordinary situations, additions made to
the edicta. An iudex then would judge a remedy according to the facts of the case.
Their sentences were supposed to be simple interpretations of the traditional customs,
but effectively it was an activity that, apart from formally reconsidering for each case
what precisely was traditionally in the legal habits, soon turned also to a more equitable
interpretation, coherently adapting the law to the newer social instances. The law was
then implemented with new evolutive Institutiones (legal concepts), while remaining in
the traditional scheme. Praetors were replaced in the 3rd century BC by a laical body
of prudentes. Admission to this body was conditional upon proof of competence or
experience.
Under the Roman Empire, schools of law were created, and the activity constantly
became more academic. In the age from the early Roman Empire to the 3rd century, a

relevant literature was produced by some notable groups including the Proculians
and Sabinians. The scientific depth of the studies was unprecedented in ancient times.
After the 3rd century, Juris prudentia became a more bureaucratic activity, with few
notable authors. It was during the Eastern Roman Empire (5th century) that legal
studies were once again undertaken in depth, and it is from this cultural movement
that Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis was born.
Jurisprudential Theories[edit]
Natural law[edit]
In its general context, natural law theory may be compared to both state-of-nature law
and general law understood on the basis of an analogy to the physical laws of science.
Natural law is often contrasted to positive law which asserts law as the product of
human activity and human volition.
Another approach to natural law jurisprudence generally asserts that human law may be
supported by decisive reasons for action. In other words, there must be a compelling
rationale behind following human law. There are two readings of the natural law
jurisprudential stance.
1. The Strong Natural Law Thesis holds that if a human law fails to be backed-up
by decisive reasons, then it is not properly called a law at all. This is captured,
imperfectly, in the famous maxim: lex iniusta non est lex' (an unjust law is no law
at all).
2. The Weak Natural Law Thesis holds that If a human law fails to be backed-up
by decisive reasons, then it can still be called a law, but it must be recognised
as a defective law.
Notions of an objective moral order, external to human legal systems, underlie natural
law. What is right or wrong can vary according to the interests one is focused upon.
Natural law is sometimes identified with the maxim that "an unjust law is no law at all",
but as John Finnis, the most important of modern natural barristers have argued, this
maxim is a poor guide to the classical Thomist position. Strongly related to theories of
natural law are classical theories of justice, beginning in the West with Platos Republic.
Aristotle[edit]

Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez

Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law.[8] Like his philosophical
forefathers Socrates and Plato, Aristotle posited the existence of natural justice or
natural right (dikaion physikon, , Latin ius naturale). His association with
natural law is largely due to the way in which he was interpreted by Thomas Aquinas.
[9]
This was based on Aquinas' conflation of natural law and natural right, the latter of
which Aristotle posits in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics (= Book IV of the Eudemian
Ethics). Aquinas's influence was such as to affect a number of early translations of
these passages,[10] though more recent translations render them more literally.[11]
Aristotle's theory of justice is bound up in his idea of the golden mean. Indeed his
treatment of what he calls "political justice" derives from his discussion of "the just" as a
moral virtue derived as the mean between opposing vices, just like every other virtue he
describes.[12] His longest discussion of his theory of justice occurs in Nicomachean
Ethics and begins by asking what sort of mean a just act is. He argues that the term
"justice" actually refers to two different but related ideas: general justice and particular
justice.[13][14] When a person's actions are completely virtuous in all matters in relation to
others, Aristotle calls them "just" in the sense of "general justice;" as such this idea of
justice is more or less coextensive with virtue.[15] "Particular" or "partial justice", by
contrast, is the part of "general justice" or the individual virtue that is concerned with
treating others equitably.[14] Aristotle moves from this unqualified discussion of justice to
a qualified view of political justice, by which he means something close to the subject of
modern jurisprudence. Of political justice, Aristotle argues that it is partly derived from
nature and partly a matter of convention.[16] This can be taken as a statement that is
similar to the views of modern natural law theorists. But it must also be remembered
that Aristotle is describing a view of morality, not a system of law, and therefore his
remarks as to nature are about the grounding of the morality enacted as law, not the
laws themselves. The passage here is silent as to that question.
The best evidence of Aristotle's having thought there was a natural law comes from
the Rhetoric, where Aristotle notes that, aside from the "particular" laws that each
people has set up for itself, there is a "common" law that is according to nature. [17] The
context of this remark, however, suggests only that Aristotle thought that it could be
rhetorically advantageous to appeal to such a law, especially when the "particular" law
of one's own city was adverse to the case being made, not that there actually was such
a law;[18] Aristotle, moreover, considered two of the three candidates for a universally
valid, natural law suggested in this passage to be wrong. [19] Aristotle's theoretical
paternity of the natural law tradition is consequently disputed. [citation needed]
Thomas Aquinas[edit]

Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Western medieval legalscholar

Main article: Thomas Aquinas
Saint Thomas Aquinas, [Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino] (c. 1225 7 March 1274) was an
Italian philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, known as "Doctor
Angelicus, Doctor Universalis". He is the foremost classical proponent of natural
theology, and the father of the Thomistic school of philosophy, for a long time the
primary philosophical approach of the Roman Catholic Church. The work for which he is
best known is the Summa Theologica. One of the thirty-five Doctors of the Church, he is
considered by many Catholics to be the Church's greatest theologian. Consequently,
many institutions of learning have been named after him.
Aquinas distinguished four kinds of law: eternal, natural, human and divine:

Eternal law refers to divine reason, known only to God. It is God's plan for the
universe. Man needs this, for without it he would totally lack direction.

Natural law is the "participation" in the eternal law by rational human creatures,
and is discovered by reason.

Divine law is revealed in the scriptures and is God's positive law for mankind.

Human law is supported by reason and enacted for the common good. [20]

Natural law, of course, is based on "first principles":

. . . this is the first precept of the law, that good is to be done and promoted, and evil is
to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based on this . . . [21]
The desires to live and to procreate are counted by Aquinas among those basic
(natural) human values on which all other human values are based.
.
Thomas Hobbes[edit]
Main article: Thomas Hobbes
In his treatise Leviathan, (1651), Hobbes expresses a view of natural law as a precept,
or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is
destructive of his life, or takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that
by which he thinks it may best be preserved. Hobbes was a social contractarian[24] and
believed that the law gained peoples' tacit consent. He believed that society was formed

from a state of nature to protect people from the state of war between mankind that
exists otherwise. Life is, without an ordered society, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and
short". It is commonly commented that Hobbes' views about the core of human nature
were influenced by his times. The English Civil War and the Cromwellian dictatorship
had taken place, and he felt absolute authority vested in a monarch, whose subjects
obeyed the law, was the basis of a civilized society.
Lon Fuller[edit]
Main article: Lon L. Fuller
Writing after World War II, Lon L. Fuller notably emphasised that the law must meet
certain formal requirements (such as being impartial and publicly knowable). To the
extent that an institutional system of social control falls short of these requirements,
Fuller argues, we are less inclined to recognise it as a system of law, or to give it our
respect. Thus, law has an internal morality that goes beyond the social rules by which
valid laws are made.
John Finnis[edit]
Main article: John Finnis
Sophisticated positivist and natural law theories sometimes resemble each other more
than the above descriptions might suggest, and they may concede certain points to the
other "side". Identifying a particular theorist as a positivist or a natural law theorist
sometimes involves matters of emphasis and degree, and the particular influences on
the theorist's work. In particular, the older natural lawyers, such as Aquinas and John
Locke made no distinction between analytic and normative jurisprudence. But modern
natural lawyers, such as John Finnis claim to be positivists, while still arguing that law is
a basically moral creature.

Analytic jurisprudence[edit]
Main article: Analytic jurisprudence
Analytic, or 'clarificatory', jurisprudence means the use of a neutral point of view and
descriptive language when referring to the aspects of legal systems. This was a
philosophical development that rejected natural law's fusing of what law is and what it
ought to be.[25] David Hume famously argued in A Treatise of Human Nature[26] that
people invariably slip between describing that the world is a certain way to saying
therefore we ought to conclude on a particular course of action. But as a matter of pure
logic, one cannot conclude that we ought to do something merely because

something is the case. So analysing and clarifying the way the world is must be treated
as a strictly separate question to normative and evaluative ought questions.
The most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are: "What are laws?"; "What
is the law?"; "What is the relationship between law and power/sociology?"; and "What is
the relationship between law and morality?" Legal positivism is the dominant theory,
although there are a growing number of critics who offer their own interpretations.
Legal positivists[edit]
Main article: Legal positivism
Positivism simply means that law is something that is "posited": laws are validly made in
accordance with socially accepted rules. The positivist view on law can be seen to cover
two broad principles: Firstly, that laws may seek to enforce justice, morality, or any other
normative end, but their success or failure in doing so does not determine their validity.
Provided a law is properly formed, in accordance with the rules recognized in the
society concerned, it is a valid law, regardless of whether it is just by some other
standard. Secondly, that law is nothing more than a set of rules to provide order and
governance of society. No legal positivist, however, argues that it follows that the law is
therefore to be obeyed, no matter what. This is seen as a separate question entirely.

What the law is (lex lata) - is determined by historical social practice (resulting in
rules)
What the law ought to be (lex ferenda) - is determined by moral considerations.

Bentham and Austin[edit]

Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the twentieth century
Main articles: Jeremy Bentham and John Austin (legal philosopher)
One of the earliest legal positivists was Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was an early and
staunch supporter of the utilitarian concept (along with Hume), an avid prison reformer,
advocate for democracy, and strongly atheist. Bentham's views about law and
jurisprudence were popularized by his student, John Austin. Austin was the first chair of
law at the newUniversity of London from 1829. Austin's utilitarian answer to "what is
law?" was that law is "commands, backed by threat of sanctions, from a sovereign, to
whom people have a habit of obedience".[27] Contemporary legal positivists have long
abandoned this view, and have criticised its oversimplification, H. L. A. Hart particularly.
Hans Kelsen[edit]
Main article: Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen is considered one of the prominent jurists of the 20th century and has
been highly influential in Europe and Latin America, although less so in common-law
countries. His Pure Theory of Law aims to describe law as binding norms while at the
same time refusing, itself, to evaluate those norms. That is, 'legal science' is to be
separated from 'legal politics'. Central to the Pure Theory of Law is the notion of a 'basic
norm (Grundnorm)'a hypothetical norm, presupposed by the jurist, from which in a
hierarchy all 'lower' norms in a legal system, beginning with constitutional law, are
understood to derive their authority or 'bindingness'. In this way, Kelsen contends, the
bindingness of legal norms, their specifically 'legal' character, can be understood without
tracing it ultimately to some suprahuman source such as God, personified Nature orof
great importance in his timea personified State or Nation.
H. L. A. Hart[edit]
Main article: H. L. A. Hart
In th Anglophone world, the pivotal writer was H. L. A. Hart, who argued that the law
should be understood as a system of social rules. Hart rejected Kelsen's views that
sanctions were essential to law and that a normative social phenomenon, like law, can
not be grounded in non-normative social facts. Hart revived analytical jurisprudence as
an important theoretical debate in the twentieth century through his book The Concept
of Law.[28] As the professor of jurisprudence at Oxford University, Hart argued that law is
a 'system of rules'.
Rules, said Hart, are divided into primary rules (rules of conduct) and secondary rules
(rules addressed to officials to administer primary rules). Secondary rules are divided
into rules of adjudication (to resolve legal disputes), rules of change (allowing laws to be

varied) and the rule of recognition (allowing laws to be identified as valid). The "rule of
recognition" is a customary practice of the officials (especially barristers and judges)
that identifies certain acts and decisions as sources of law. A pivotal book on Hart was
written by Neil MacCormick[29] in 1981 (second edition due in 2007), which further
refined and offered some important criticisms that led MacCormick to develop his own
theory (the best example of which is his recently published Institutions of Law, 2007).
Other important critiques have included that of Ronald Dworkin, John Finnis,
and Joseph Raz.
In recent years, debates about the nature of law have become increasingly fine-grained.
One important debate is within legal positivism. One school is sometimes
called exclusive legal positivism, and it is associated with the view that the legal validity
of a norm can never depend on its moral correctness. A second school is
labeled inclusive legal positivism, a major proponent of which is Wil Waluchow, and it is
associated with the view that moral considerationsmay determine the legal validity of a
norm, but that it is not necessary that this is the case.
Joseph Raz[edit]
Main article: Joseph Raz
Some philosophers used to contend that positivism was the theory that there is "no
necessary connection" between law and morality; but influential contemporary
positivists, including Joseph Raz, John Gardner, and Leslie Green, reject that view. As
Raz points out, it is a necessary truth that there are vices that a legal system cannot
possibly have (for example, it cannot commit rape or murder).
Joseph Raz defends the positivist outlook, but criticised Hart's "soft social thesis"
approach in The Authority of Law.[30] Raz argues that law is authority, identifiable purely
through social sources, without reference to moral reasoning. Any categorisation of
rules beyond their role as authority is better left to sociology than to jurisprudence. [31]
Ronald Dworkin[edit]
Main articles: Ronald Dworkin and Interpretivism (legal)
In his book Law's Empire[32] Dworkin attacked Hart and the positivists for their refusal to
treat law as a moral issue. Dworkin argues that law is an 'interpretive' concept, that
requires barristers to find the best-fitting and most just solution to a legal dispute, given
their constitutional traditions. According to him, law is not entirely based on social facts,
but includes the morally best justification for the institutional facts and practices that we
intuitively regard as legal. It follows on Dworkin's view that one cannot know whether a
society has a legal system in force, or what any of its laws are, until one knows some

moral truths about the justifications for the practices in that society. It is consistent with
Dworkin's viewin contrast with the views of legal positivists or legal realiststhat noone in a society may know what its laws are, because no-one may know the best
justification for its practices.
Interpretation, according to Dworkin's law as integrity theory, has two dimensions. To
count as an interpretation, the reading of a text must meet the criterion offit. Of those
interpretations that fit, however, Dworkin maintains that the correct interpretation is the
one that puts the political practices of the community in their best light, or makes of
them the best that they can be. But many writers have doubted whether there is a single
best justification for the complex practices of any given community, and others have
doubted whether, even if there are, they should be counted as part of the law of that
community.
Legal realism[edit]

Oliver Wendell Holmes was a self-styled legal realist

Main article: Legal realism
Legal realism was a view popular with some Scandinavian and American writers.
Skeptical in tone, it held that the law should be understood and determined by the
actual practices of courts, law offices, and police stations, rather than as the rules and
doctrines set forth in statutes or learned treatises. It had some affinities with the
sociology of law. The essential tenet of legal realism is that all law is made by human
beings and, thus, is subject to human foibles, frailties and imperfections.
It has become quite common today to identify Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., as the
main precursor of American Legal Realism (other influences include Roscoe
Pound, Karl Llewellyn and Justice Benjamin Cardozo). Karl Llewellyn, another founder
of the U.S. legal realism movement, similarly believed that the law is little more than
putty in the hands of a judge who is able to shape the outcome of a case based on
personal biases.[33] The chief inspiration for Scandinavian legal realism many consider to
be the works of Axel Hgerstrm. Despite its decline in popularity, realism continues to
influence a wide spectrum of jurisprudential schools today, including critical legal
studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, sociology of law and law and
economics.[34]

Historical School[edit]
Main article: German Historical School

Historical jurisprudence came to prominence during the German debate over the
proposed codification of German law. In his book On the Vocation of Our Age for
Legislation and Jurisprudence,[35] Friedrich Carl von Savigny argued that Germany did
not have a legal language that would support codification because the traditions,
customs and beliefs of the German people did not include a belief in a code. The
Historicists believe that the law originates with society.
Normative jurisprudence[edit]
Main article: Political philosophy
In addition to the question, "What is law?", legal philosophy is also concerned with
normative, or "evaluative" theories of law. What is the goal or purpose of law? What
moral or political theories provide a foundation for the law? What is the proper function
of law? What sorts of acts should be subject to punishment, and what sorts of
punishment should be permitted? What is justice? What rights do we have? Is there a
duty to obey the law? What value has the rule of law? Some of the different schools and
leading thinkers are as follows.
Virtue jurisprudence
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens
Main article: Virtue jurisprudence
Aretaic moral theories such as contemporary virtue ethics emphasize the role of
character in morality. Virtue jurisprudence is the view that the laws should promote the
development of virtuous characters by citizens. Historically, this approach is associated
mainly with Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas later. Contemporary virtue jurisprudence is
inspired by philosophical work on virtue ethics.
Deontology[edit]
Main article: Deontological ethics
Deontology is "the theory of duty or moral obligation." [36] The philosopher Immanuel
Kant formulated one influential deontological theory of law. He argued that any rule we
follow must be able to be universally applied, i.e. we must be willing for everyone to
follow that rule. A contemporary deontological approach can be found in the work of the
legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin.

Utilitarianism[edit]

Mill believed law should create happiness

Main article: Utilitarianism
See also: Lysander Spooner
Utilitarianism is the view that the laws should be crafted so as to produce the best
consequences for the greatest number of people possible. Historically, utilitarian
thinking about law is associated with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. John Stuart Mill
was a pupil of Bentham's and was the torch bearer for utilitarian philosophy through the
late nineteenth century.[37] In contemporary legal theory, the utilitarian approach is
frequently championed by scholars who work in the law and economics tradition. [34]
John Rawls[edit]
Main articles: John Rawls and A Theory of Justice
John Rawls was an American philosopher, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard
University and author of A Theory of Justice (1971), Political Liberalism, Justice as
Fairness: A Restatement, and The Law of Peoples. He is widely considered one of the
most important English-language political philosophers of the 20th century. His theory of
justice uses a device called the original position to ask us which principles of justice we
would choose to regulate the basic institutions of our society if we were behind a 'veil of
ignorance.' Imagine we do not know who we are - our race, sex, wealth status, class, or
any distinguishing feature - so that we would not be biased in our own favour. Rawls
argues from this 'original position' that we would choose exactly the same political
liberties for everyone, like freedom of speech, the right to vote and so on. Also, we
would choose a system where there is only inequality because that produces incentives
enough for the economic well-being of all society, especially the poorest. This is Rawls's

famous 'difference principle'. Justice is fairness, in the sense that the fairness of the
original position of choice guarantees the fairness of the principles chosen in that
position.
There are many other normative approaches to the philosophy of law, including critical
legal studies and libertarian theories of law

Realistic school
Legal realism is a naturalistic approach to law. Legal realists believe that the legal science should
investigate law exclusively with the value-free methods of natural sciences, also called 'sciences of
the real' in some Continental languages (e.g., 'Realwissenschaften', in German). Some legal realists
(e.g., Leon Petraycki or Max Weber) also hold that there should exist, too, a legal dogmatics, which
is independent of legal science proper but, this notwithstanding, can be regarded as a science in its
own right (and so, despite its being a non-real, or formal, science). However the focus of all legal
realists is on legal science proper. Due to their value-free approach, legal realists are opposed to
natural law traditions. Legal realists regard these traditions as historical and/or social phenomena to
be explained by making use of a variety of psychological and sociological hypotheses. They are also
opposed to any form of linguistic turn in jurisprudence. When applied to law, they regard the
linguistic turn as a sort of 'emasculation' (Enrico Pattaro) of legal phenomena. This is so because
legal realists conceive legal phenomena as psychical phenomena, and, notably, as a form of moral
motivation of human behavior (to be investigated with the methods of psychology and/or
neurosciences). All this implies that legal realists are opposed to most versions of
contemporary legal positivism. A further difference from all sorts of legal positivism is that legal
realists refuse to confine their investigations to state law and/or positive law. Moreover, legal realists
have a conception of law that stretches far beyond legal pluralismso popular in many versions of
classical and contemporary sociology of law. This is one of the reasons why legal realism cannot be
regarded as a sort of sociology of law (other reasons being: legal realists' psychologism and their
refusal of the linguistic turna turn that affected, too, sociology of law). Apart from Max Weber (who,
owing to a variety of reasons, is mostly conceptualized as sociologist rather than as a legal realist),
there are two strands of legal realism in this sense: Scandinavian legal realism, founded by Axel
Hgerstrm (1868-1939), and Polish-Russian legal realism, founded by Leon Petraycki (18671931). Both realisms, owing to their similarities (and despite their founders' ignoring one another),
are sometimes referred to as 'continental legal realism' (in the singular).
In English-speaking countries the phrase 'legal realism' has often a somewhat different and more
restricted meaning. It is used to refer to a conception of adjudication rather than of law in general.
However, some legal realists in this other sense, including the founder of this movement Oliver W.
Holmes, reduced law to the activity of courts and other state officials, thus proposing a kind of
naturalistic and value-free reduction of law (a conception, though, that all continental legal realists
would reject, inter alia, as excessively narrow). It is to this other kind of legal realismalso called
'American legal realism'that this entry is devoted.
American legal realists (henceforth: realists) believe that there is more to adjudication than the
mechanical application of known legal principles to uncontroversial fact-finding as legal
formalism believes. Some realists believe that one can never be sure that the facts and law identified
in the judge's reasons were the actual reasons for the judgment, whereas other realists accept that a
judge's reasons can often be relied upon, but not all of the time. Realists believe that the legal
principles that legal formalism treat as uncontroversial actually hide contentious political and moral
choices.

Realism was treated as a conceptual claim for much of the late 20th century due to HLA Hart's
misunderstanding of the theory.[1] Hart was an analytical legal philosopher who was interested in
conceptual analysis of concepts such as the concept of 'law'. This entailed identifying the necessary
and sufficient conditions for the use of the concept 'law'. When realists such as Oliver Wendell
Holmes pointed out that individuals embroiled in the legal system generally wanted to know what
was going to happen, Hart assumed that they were offering the necessary and sufficient conditions
for the use of the concept 'law'. Nowadays, legal theorists tend to recognise that the realists and the
conceptual lawyers were interested in different questions. Realists are interested in methods of
predicting judges with more accuracy, whereas conceptual lawyers are interested in the correct use
of legal concepts.
Legal realism was primarily a reaction to the legal formalism of the late 19th century and early 20th
century, and was the dominant approach for much of the early 20th century. It succeeded in its
negative aspiration of casting doubt upon formalist assumptions that judges always did what they
said so that it is often said that 'we are all realists now.' However, realism failed in its positive
aspiration of discovering a better way of predicting how judges would behave than relying on the
reasons given by judges.
A theory of law and legal reasoning that arose in the early decades of the twentieth century broadly
characterized by the claim that law can be best understood by focusing on what judges actually do in
deciding cases, rather than on what they say they are doing. [2] The central target of legal realism was
legal formalism: the classical view that judges don't make law, but mechanically apply it by logically
deducing uniquely correct legal conclusions from a set of clear, consistent, and comprehensive legal
rules.[3] American legal realism has aptly been described as "the most important indigenous
jurisprudential movement in the United States during the twentieth century." [4] Though most legal
scholars today would agree that some aspects of legal realism were misguided or over-stated, its
enduring influence on legal thought and legal education has been profound.

Forerunners of legal realism[edit]

Although the American legal realist movement first emerged as a cohesive intellectual force in the
1920s, it drew heavily upon a number of prior thinkers and was influenced by broader cultural forces.
In the early years of the twentieth century, formalist approaches to the law had been forcefully
criticized by thinkers such as Roscoe Pound, John Chipman Gray, and Benjamin Cardozo.
Philosophers such as John Dewey had held up empirical science as a model of all intelligent inquiry,
and argued that law should be seen as a practical instrument for advancing human welfare. Outside
the realm of law, in fields such as economics and history, there was a general "revolt against
formalism," a reaction in favor of more empirical ways of doing philosophy and the human sciences.
[5]
But by far the most important intellectual influence on the legal realists was the thought of the
American jurist and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.[edit]

Holmes is a towering figure in American legal thought for many reasons, but what the realists drew
most from Holmes was his famous prediction theory of law, his utilitarian approach to legal
reasoning, and his "realist" insistence that judges, in deciding cases, are not simply deducing legal

conclusions with inexorable, machine-like logic, but are influenced by ideas of fairness, public policy,
and other personal and conventional values.
"The Path of the Law"[edit]
All these themes can be found in Holmes's famous 1897 essay, "The Path of the Law." There
Holmes attacks formalist approaches to judicial decision making and states a pragmatic definition of
"law": "The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I
mean by the law".[6] If law is prophecy, Holmes continues, we must reject the view of "text writers"
who tell you that law "is something different from what is decided by the courts of Massachusetts or
England, that it is a system of reason that is a deduction from principles of ethics or admitted axioms
or what not, which may or may not coincide with the decisions".[6]
Holmes next introduces his most important and influential argument, the "bad-man" theory of law:
"[I]f we take the view of our friend the bad man we shall find that he does not care two straws" about
either the morality or the logic of the law. For the bad man, "legal duty" signifies only "a prophecy
that if he does certain things he will be subjected to disagreeable consequences by way of
imprisonment or compulsory payment".[6] The bad man cares nothing for legal theorizing and
concerns himself only with practical consequences. In the spirit of pragmatism, Holmes suggests
that this is useful way of laying bare the true meaning of legal concepts.
The utilitarian or instrumentalist flavor of the "The Path of the Law" also found favor with the realists.
The purpose of the law, Holmes insisted, was the deterrence of undesirable social consequences: "I
think that the judges themselves have failed adequately to recognize their duty of weighing
considerations of social advantage."[7] Before the Civil War, this conception of adjudication as a form
of social engineering had been widely shared by American judges, but in the late nineteenth century
it had fallen out of favor.[8] One of the aspirations of both Holmes and the realists was to revive it.

Key themes of legal realism[edit]

Drawing upon Holmes and other critics of legal formalism, a number of iconoclastic legal scholars
launched the legal realist movement in the 1920s and 30s. Among the leading legal realists
were Karl Llewellyn, Jerome Frank, Herman Oliphant, Underhill Moore, Walter Wheeler Cook, Leon
Green, and Felix Cohen. Two American law schools, Yale and Columbia, were hotbeds of realist
thought. Realism was a mood more than it was a cohesive movement, but it is possible to identify a
number of common themes. These include:

A distrust of the judicial technique of seeming to deduce legal conclusions from so-called
rules of law. The realists believed that judges neither do nor should decide cases formalistically.
Law is not, as the formalists claimed, a system of rules that is clear, consistent, and complete.
Rather, the law is riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, gaps, vague terms, and conflicting
rules of interpretation. As a result, there is often (perhaps always) no uniquely correct answer to
any hard case that appellate judges decide. Law is incurably "indeterminate."

A belief in the instrumental nature of the law. Like Dewey and Pound, the realists believed
that law does and should serve social ends. Judges unavoidably take account of considerations
of fairness and public policy, and they are right to do so. [9]

A desire to separate legal from moral elements in the law. The realists were legal positivists
who believed that law should be treated scientifically. A clear distinction should be drawn
between what the law is and what it should be. Law can only be viewed as an empirical science,
as it ought to be, if moralistic notions are either excluded or are translated into empirically
verifiable terms.[10] The idea that legal talk of "duty," "right," etc. is really just talk about how
judges are likely to decide cases, is a clear example of how many realists tried to purge law of
moralistic language and translate everything into "realistic" talk of actual consequences and
testable predictions.

Criticisms[edit]
Legal realism had its heyday from the 1920s to the 1940s. In the 1950s, legal realism was largely
supplanted by the legal process movement, which viewed law as a process of "reasoned
elaboration" and claimed that appeals to "legislative purpose" and other well-established legal norms
could provide objectively correct answers to most legal questions. In his 1961 book The Concept of
Law, British legal theorist H. L. A. Hart dealt what many scholars saw as a "decisive blow"[11] to legal
realism, by attacking the predictive theory of law that many realists had taken over from Holmes.
Hart pointed out that if a law is just a prediction of what courts will do, a judge pondering the legal
merits of a case before him is really asking, "How will I decide this case?" As Hart notes, this
completely misses the fact that judges use legal rules to guide their decisions, not as data to predict
their eventual holdings.
Many critics have claimed that the realists exaggerated the extent to which law is "riddled" with gaps,
contradictions, and so forth.[12] The fact that most legal questions have simple, clear-cut answers that
no lawyer or judge would dispute is difficult to square with the realists' strong claims of pervasive
legal "indeterminacy." Other critics, such as Ronald Dworkin and Lon Fuller, have faulted legal
realists for their attempt to sharply separate law and morality.[13]

Influence and continuing relevance[edit]

Though many aspects of legal realism are now seen as exaggerated or outdated, most legal
theorists would agree that the realists were successful in their central ambition: to refute "formalist"
or "mechanical" notions of law and legal reasoning. It is widely accepted today that law is not, and
cannot be, an exact science, and that it is important to examine what judges are actually doing in
deciding cases, not merely what they say they are doing. As ongoing debates about judicial
activism and judicial restraint attest, legal scholars continue to disagree about when, if ever, it is
legitimate for judges to "make law," as opposed to merely "following" or "applying" existing law.[14] But
few would disagree with the realists' core claim that judges (for good or ill) are often strongly
influenced by their political beliefs, their personal values, their individual personalities, and other
extra-legal factors.

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%20jurisprudence

Sociology of law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The sociology of law (or legal sociology) is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an
interdisciplinary approach within legal studies.[1] Some see sociology of law as belonging
"necessarily" to the field of sociology[2]whilst others tend to consider it a field of research caught up
between the disciplines of law and sociology.[3] Still others regard it neither as a sub-discipline of
sociology nor as a branch of legal studies but as a field of research on its own right within the
broader social science tradition. Accordingly, it may be described without reference to mainstream
sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social
practices or as an aspect or field of social experience",.[4] It has been seen as treating law and justice
as fundamental institutions of the basic structure of society mediating "between political and
economic interests, between culture and the normative order of society, establishing and maintaining
interdependence, and constituting themselves as sources of consensus, coercion and social
control".[5]
Irrespective of whether sociology of law is defined as a sub-discipline of sociology, an approach
within legal studies, or a field of research in its own right, it remains intellectually dependent mainly
on the traditions, methods and theories of mainstream sociology and, to a lesser extent on
other social sciences such as social anthropology, political science, social
policy, criminology and psychology; as such, it reflects social theories and employs social scientific
methods to study law, legal institutions and legal behavior.[6]
More specifically, sociology of law consists of various approaches to the study of law in society,
which empirically examine and theorize the interaction between law, legal, non-legal institutions and
social factors.[7] Areas of socio-legal inquiry include the social development of legal institutions, forms
of social control, legal regulation, the interaction between legal cultures, the social construction of
legal issues, legal profession, and the relation between law and social change.
Sociology of law also benefits from and occasionally draws on research conducted within other fields
such ascomparative law, critical legal studies, jurisprudence, legal theory, law and
economics and law and literature. Its object encompasses the historical movement of law and justice
and their relentless contemporary construction, e.g., in the field of jurisprudence focused on
institutional questions conditioned by social and political situations, in interdisciplinary dominions
such as criminology, and through analysis of the economic efficiency and the social impact of legal
norms.[8]

Intellectual origins[edit]
Max Weber

The roots of the sociology of law can be traced back to the works of sociologists and jurists of the
turn of the previous century. The relationship between law and society was sociologically explored in
the seminal works of both Max Weber and mile Durkheim. The writings on law by these classical
sociologists are foundational to the entire sociology of law today.[9] A number of other scholars,
mainly jurists, also employed social scientific theories and methods in an attempt to develop
sociological theories of law. Notably among these were Leon Petrazycki, Eugen Ehrlich and Georges
Gurvitch.
For Max Weber, a so-called "legal rational form" as a type of domination within society, is not
attributable to people but to abstract norms.[10] He understood the body of coherent and calculable
law in terms of a rational-legal authority. Such coherent and calculable law formed a precondition for
modern political developments and the modern bureaucratic state and developed in parallel with the

growth of capitalism.[11] Central to the development of modern law is the formal rationalisation of law
on the basis of general procedures that are applied equally and fairly to all. Modern rationalised law
is also codified and impersonal in its application to specific cases. In general, Weber's standpoint
can be described as an external approach to law that studies the empirical characteristics of law, as
opposed to the internal perspective of the legal sciences and the moral approach of the philosophy
of law.[12]
mile Durkheim

mile Durkheim wrote in The Division of Labour in Society that as society becomes more complex,
the body of civil law concerned primarily with restitution and compensation grows at the expense of
criminal laws and penal sanctions.[13] Over time, law has undergone a transformation from repressive
law to restitutive law. Restitutive law operates in societies in which there is a high degree of
individual variation and emphasis on personal rights and responsibilities. [14] For Durkheim, law is an
indicator of the mode of integration of a society, which can be mechanical, among identical parts, or
organic, among differentiated parts such as in industrialized societies. Durkheim also argued that a
sociology of law should be developed alongside, and in close connection with, a sociology of morals,
studying the development of value systems reflected in law.[15]
In Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law, Eugen Ehrlich developed a sociological
approach to the study of law by focusing on how social networks and groups organized social life.
[16]
He explored the relationship between law and general social norms and distinguished between
"positive law," consisting of the compulsive norms of state requiring official enforcement, and "living
law," consisting of the rules of conduct that people in fact obeyed and which dominated social life.
The latter emerged spontaneously as people interacted with each other to form social associations.
[17]

The centre of gravity of legal development therefore from time immemorial has not lain in the activity
of the state, but in society itself, and must be sought there at the present time".
Eugen Ehrlich, Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law[18]
This was subjected to criticism by the advocates of legal positivism such as the jurist Hans
Kelsen for its distinction between "law created by the state and law produced by the organisational
imperatives of non-state social associations".[19] According to Kelsen, Ehrlich had confused Sein ("is")
and Sollen ("ought").[20]However, some argued that Ehrlich was distinguishing between positive (or
state) law, which lawyers learn and apply, and other forms of 'law', what Ehrlich called "living law",
that regulate everyday life, generally preventing conflicts from reaching lawyers and courts. [21]
Leon Petrazycki

Leon Petrazycki distinguished between forms of "official law," supported by the state, and "intuitive
law," consisting of legal experiences that, in turn, consist of a complex of psychic processes in the
mind of the individual with no reference to outside authorities.[22] Petrazycki's work addressed
sociological problems and his method was empirical, since he maintained that one could gain
knowledge of objects or relationships only by observation. However, he couched his theory in the
language of cognitive psychology and moral philosophy rather than sociology. Consequently, his
contribution to the development of sociology of law remains largely unrecognized. [23] For example,
Petrazycki's "intuitive law" influenced not only the development of Georges Gurvitch's concept of
"social law" (see below), which in turn has left its mark on socio-legal theorising, but also the work of
later socio-legal scholars. Among those who were directly inspired by Petrazycki's work is the Polish
legal sociologistAdam Podgrecki.[24]

Theodor Geiger developed a close-knit analysis of the Marxist theory of law. He highlighted how law
becomes a "factor in social transformation in democratic societies of the kind that are governed by
the consent expressed by universal suffrage of the population practised at regular intervals".
[25]
Geiger went on to develop the salient characteristics of his antimetaphysical thinking, until he
exceeded it with practical nihilism. Geiger's nihilism of values paved the way for a form of legal
nihilism, which encourages the construction of a sober democracy "that is capable of raising conflict
to the intellectual level and of anaesthetising feelings, as it is aware of its own inability to make any
proclamation of value, ethics or policy about the nature of truth".[26]
Georges Gurvitch was interested in the fusion of simultaneous manifestation of law in various forms
and at various levels of social interaction. His aim was to devise the concept of "social law" as a law
of integration and cooperation.[27] Gurvitch's social law was an integral part of his general sociology.
"It is also one of the early sociological contributions to the theory of legal pluralism, since it
challenged all conceptions of law based on a single source of legal, political, or moral authority". [28]

Sociological approaches to the study of law[edit]

Modern sociology of law[edit]
The sociology of law became clearly established as an academic field of learning and empirical
research after the Second World War.[29] After World War II, the study of law was not central in
sociology, although some well-known sociologists did write about the role of law in society. In the
work of Talcott Parsons, for instance, law is conceived as an essential mechanism of social control.
[30]
In response to the criticisms that were developed against functionalism, other sociological
perspectives of law emerged. Critical sociologists,[31] developed a perspective of law as an instrument
of power. However, other theorists in the sociology of law, such as Philip Selznick, argued that
modern law became increasingly responsive to a society's needs and had to be approached morally
as well.[32] Still other scholars, most notably the American sociologist Donald Black, developed a
resolutely scientific theory of law on the basis of a paradigm ofpure sociology. Equally broad in
orientation, but again different, is the autopoietic systems theory of the German sociologist Niklas
Luhmann, who presents law or "the legal system" as one of the ten function systems (see functional
differentiation) of society[33][34]
All collective human life is directly or indirectly shaped by law. Law is like knowledge, an essential
and all-pervasive fact of the social condition.
Niklas Luhmann, A Sociological Theory of Law[35]
Social philosopher Jrgen Habermas disagrees with Luhmann and argues that the law can do a
better job as a 'system' institution' by representing more faithfully the interests of everyday people in
the 'lifeworld'. Yet another sociological theory of law and lawyers is that of Pierre Bourdieu and his
followers, who see law as a social field in which actors struggle for cultural, symbolic and economic
capital and in so doing develop the reproductive professional habitus of the lawyer.[36] In several
continental European countries empirical research in sociology of law developed strongly from the
1960s and 1970s. In Poland the work of Adam Podgrecki and his associates (often influenced
by Petrazycki's ideas) was especially notable; in Sweden empirical research in sociology of law in
this period was pioneered especially by Per Stjernquist, and in Norway by Vilhelm Aubert.
In more recent years, a very wide range of theories has emerged in the sociology of law as a result
of the proliferation of theories in sociology at large. Among the recent influences can be mentioned
the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, the German social theorist Jrgen
Habermas, feminism,postmodernism and deconstruction, neo-Marxism, and behaviorism. The
variety of theoretical influences in the sociology of law has also marked the broader law and society
field. The multi-disciplinary law and society field remains very popular, while the disciplinary

speciality field of the sociology of law is also "better organized than ever in institutional and
professional respects."[37]

Law and Society[edit]

Law and Society is an American movement, which was established after the Second World War
through the initiative mainly of sociologists who had a vested interest in the study of law.[38] The
rationale of the Law and Society movement is subtly summed up in two short sentences
by Lawrence Friedman: "Law is a massive vital presence in the United States. It is too important to
be left to lawyers".[39] Its founders believed that the "study of law and legal institutions in their social
context could be constituted as a scholarly field distinguished by its commitment to interdisciplinary
dialogue and multidisciplinary research methods". [40]The establishment of the Law and Society
Association in 1964 and of the Law and Society Review in 1966 guaranteed continuity in the
scholarly activities of the Law and Society movement and allowed its members to influence legal
education and policy-making in the US.[41]
On one view, the main difference between the sociology of law and Law and Society is that the latter
does not limit itself theoretically or methodologically to sociology and tries instead to accommodate
insights from all social science disciplines.[42] "Not only does it provides a home for sociologists and
social anthropologists and political scientists with an interest in law, it also tries to incorporate
psychologists and economists who study law."[43] From another point of view, both sociology of law
and Law and Society should be seen as multi-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary enterprises although
sociology of law has special ties to the methods, theories and traditions of sociology.[44]
During the 1970s and 1980s a number of original empirical studies were conducted by Law and
Society scholars on conflict and dispute resolution. In his early work, William Felstiner, for example,
focused on alternative ways to solve conflicts (avoidance, mediation, litigation etc.). Together
with Richard Abel and Austin Sarat, Felstiner developed the idea of a disputes pyramid and the
formula "naming, blaming, claiming", which refers to different stages of conflict resolution and levels
of the pyramid.[45]

Sociological jurisprudence[edit]
The sociology of law is often distinguished from sociological jurisprudence. The latter is not primarily
concerned with debates within mainstream sociology and instead engages with some of the debates
within jurisprudence and legal theory. Sociological jurisprudence seeks to base legal arguments on
sociological insights and, unlike legal theory, is concerned with the mundane practices that create
legal institutions and social operations which reproduce legal systems over time. It was developed in
the United States by Louis Brandeis and Roscoe Pound.[46][47][48] It was influenced by the work of
pioneer legal sociologists, such as the Austrian jurist Eugen Ehrlich and the Russian-French
sociologist Georges Gurvitch.[49]
Although distinguishing between different branches of the social scientific studies of law allows us to
explain and analyse the development of the sociology of law in relation to mainstream sociology and
legal studies, such potentially artificial distinctions are not necessarily fruitful for the development of
the field as whole. For the social scientific studies of law to transcend the theoretical and empirical
limits, which currently define their scope, they need to go beyond such artificial distinctions. [50]

Socio-legal studies[edit]
'Socio-legal studies' in the UK has grown mainly out of the interest of law schools in promoting
interdisciplinary studies of law.[51] Whether regarded as an emerging discipline, sub-discipline or a
methodological approach, it is often viewed in light of its relationship to, and oppositional role within,
law.[52] It should not, therefore, be confused with the legal sociology of many West European
countries or the Law and Society scholarship in the US, which foster much stronger disciplinary ties
with social sciences. In the past, it has been presented as the applied branch of the sociology of law

and criticised for being empiricist and atheoretical. [53] Max Travers, for example, regards socio-legal
studies as a subfield of social policy, 'mainly concerned with influencing or serving government policy
in the provision of legal services'[54] and adds that it "has given up any aspirations it once had to
develop general theories about the policy process".[55]
Notable practitioners of socio-legal studies include Professor Carol Smart, co-director of the Morgan
Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal Life, (named after the sociologist, David
Morgan), as well as Professor Mavis Maclean and John Eekelaar who are joint directors of the
Oxford Centre for Family Law and Policy (OXFLAP).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_law