Blackstone's Tower: The English Law School - College of Social ...

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Law in Culture and Society teric. The exercise demonstrates that the subject-matter of law is dynamic, fascinating and relevant to almost every aspect of public and private life. The second fallacy is that law is a new subject that they are encountering for the first time. In fact it is so much a part of our environment that our legal education begins at birth. Everyone daily has direct experience of state law. At a more fundamental level, everyone makes, interprets, obeys, manipulates and evades rules; everyone weighs evidence; everyone makes claims, negotiates, mediates, and argues; in daily living, almost everyone has been a claimant, negotiator, advocate and judge. I can confidently stand in front of a class made up predominantly of 18 to 19 year olds and use a traditional law teacher's incantation: "I have before me a bunch of slanderers, legatees, trespassers, tortfeasors, buyers, sellers, copyright violators, smugglers, debtors and CRIMINALS". I could say the same and more to my present audience. But my immediate purpose is to focus on law as an academic enterprise, as a subject of formal study and scholarly endeavour. In order to understand the world of the law school one needs to learn something about its history, traditions, dilemmas and quirks. Every adult member of society has some practical experience and a good deal of knowledge of many aspects of law, probably more than most of you realise. So, in an important sense, the subject-matter of the discipline needs no introduction. The treatment of law by the media reflects its pervasiveness in most aspects of our social, political and economic life. This seems to contrast quite sharply with the relatively low visibility of the discipline of law in our intellectual life: law as a subject of study is still widely considered to be technical and esoteric. In the United States law schools are highly visible institutions. Law schools and law teachers feature in popular novels by Scott Turow and John Grisham; some of you will recall John Houseman as Professor Kingsfield of the Harvard Law School in The Paperchase, which was in turn a popular novel, a film and a soap opera, and of which one critic wrote that this was like Love Story, with a contracts teacher substituted for leukaemia as the villain. 12 Unlike their American counterparts, our law schools are not particularly prominent social institutions; law schools and law teachers hardly ever feature in British campus novels or soap operas; and the law section, if there is one, is almost always hidden in the remoter regions of even the best book shop. There is a puzzle 10
Law in Culture and Society here. Is there really a sharp contrast between the prominent treatment of law in newspapers and its place in other forms of literature? Let us pause for a moment and consider law in book shops through an anecdote. LAW IN CULTURE: FANTASY IN A BOOK SHOP One afternoon some years ago while browsing in a provincial second-hand book shop, I overheard a conversation between the manager and a new assistant. It was the time of year when university students try to sell their books after their examinations are over. The manager was explaining his buying policy for "intellectual" books: "We do not want specialist works", he was saying, "only those with some appeal to the general reader". By this test English literature, sociology, politics (but not economics), Penguin philosophy and works on oriental religions were "in"; technical and scientific books, law, business studies, medicine and Christian theology were "out". History, anthropology, classics and modern languages were tricky—"When in doubt don't buy" he advised. This struck me as a fair precis of contemporary ideas of general middle-brow culture. I was sorry that law was dismissed so summarily. It was not surprising, for the image of law books is still of large volumes—erudite, expensive and boring—that are almost always to be found in the most remote part of a book shop, if they are stocked at all. One does not find law books on railway station bookstalls. Reflecting on this later, I began to construct an imaginary conversation with the manager in which I tried to persuade him why and in what respects his attitude to law was wrong. Some of it went as follows: "You already hold many books about law, only you don't classify them as such. Under literature you have Bleak House, Billy Budd, Crime and Punishment, Lord of the Flies and Kafka's The Trial; under history you have Albion's Fatal Tree, Maitland's Constitutional History of England and Herbert Morrison's Memoirs, each of which is about different aspects of law-making; the drama section includes Antigone, A Man for All Seasons, The Merchant of Venice, St Joan, The Trial of Galileo, The Winslow Boy, and many others—for drama and trials are natural partners. You have whole sections devoted to crime and detection; you 11
Page 1: THE HAMLYN LECTURES BLACKSTONE'S
Page 4 and 5: AUSTRALIA The Law Book Company Bris
Page 6 and 7: Published in 1994 by Stevens & Sons
Page 9: TABLE OF CONTENTS The Hamlyn Lectur
Page 12 and 13: The Hamlyn Lectures 1962 Lawyer and
Page 15 and 16: The Hamlyn Trust The Hamlyn Trust o
Page 17 and 18: ABBREVIATIONS (a) The following abb
Page 19: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the course of th
Page 22 and 23: Preface There is an irony in arguin
Page 24 and 25: Preface Henry James' caretaker I wo
Page 26 and 27: Law in Culture and Society tures an
Page 28 and 29: Law in Culture and Society The Engl
Page 30 and 31: Law in Culture and Society by the I
Page 32 and 33: Law in Culture and Society narrow d
Page 36 and 37: Law in Culture and Society have bio
Page 38 and 39: Law in Culture and Society lectivel
Page 40 and 41: Law in Culture and Society Snell on
Page 42 and 43: Law in Culture and Society cesses a
Page 44 and 45: Law in Culture and Society ated int
Page 46 and 47: Law in Culture and Society 3 Comm.
Page 48 and 49: Law in the Universities: The Histor
Page 74 and 75: What are Law Schools for? distracti
Page 76 and 77: What are Law Schools for? view of e
Page 78 and 79: What are Law Schools for? and prest
Page 80 and 81: What are Law Schools for? of legal
Page 82 and 83: What are Law Schools for? continue
Page 84 and 85:
What are Law Schools for? 91. While
Page 86 and 87:
What are Law Schools for? ibid. Cha
Page 88 and 89:
4. Law School Culture: A Visit to R
Page 90 and 91:
Law School Culture: A Visit to Rutl
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The Law Library is credited with re
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The Law Library A guide to the Bodl
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The Law Library cular obviously req
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The Law Library in a book entitled
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The Law Library "A case is the writ
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The Law Library have long troubled
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The Law Library are really primary.
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The Law Library "Is it not in the n
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The Law Library women and minoritie
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The Law Library British Isles. Ther
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The Law Library dence, Legal Histor
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The Law Library written by practiti
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The Law Library tioners' works, alt
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The Law Library information and ful
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The Law Library 28 S. Chibnall, Law
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The Law Library which see the Prefa
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Legal Scholarship and the Roles of
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Page 178 and 179:
The Quest For a Core somewhat diffe
Page 180 and 181:
The Quest For a Core of the law, as
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The Quest For a Core content, it fo
Page 184 and 185:
The Quest For a Core "Of course, la
Page 186 and 187:
The Quest For a Core ive either ref
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The Quest For a Core worth remarkin
Page 190 and 191:
The Quest For a Core In the late 19
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The Quest For a Core the vocational
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The Quest For a Core was essential
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The Quest For a Core riers" between
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The Quest For a Core new skills ort
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The Quest For a Core texts of their
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The Quest For a Core If I am asked
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The Quest For a Core Within the leg
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The Quest For a Core For example, w
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The Quest For a Core is a further a
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The Quest For a Core exposition of
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The Quest For a Core what and know-
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EPILOGUE Roland Barthes' marvellous
Page 216 and 217:
Epilogue two reference groups who h
Page 218 and 219:
Epilogue lent—tend to be excluded
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Epilogue Diversification might help
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Epilogue graduates will in future h
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APPENDIX English Law Teachers as Ac
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Appendix In respect of background,
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Appendix 65% of the rest. I have ma
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INDEX Academic ethic, the, 49-51, 5
Page 233 and 234:
Index Kahn-Freund, Sir Otto, 105-10
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Blackstone's Tower: The English Law
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