This book gives an overview of the most relevant disciplines for interdisciplinary research on law. What are the characteristics of these disciplines one really needs to understand in order to do research that combines law with them? The book consists of three parts. The first part addresses general methodological questions about legal scholarship and interdisciplinary research. The second part consists of chapters exploring the relationship between law and other disciplines. The disciplines are classified in broadly three categories: empirical social science, humanities, and language-oriented disciplines. The third part contains examples of interdisciplinary research in practice: how is it done, what kinds of problems arise when doing such research, and what insights into law does it provide?
The competent study of law is a finely tuned balance of excellent language ability, good reading and writing skills, good personal study discipline, a thorough appreciation of the relevant areas of substantive law and excellent argumentative skills. Legal method is an important area of study for two main reasons. First, it is important for the range of techniques that it can offer to break into legal texts, both primary and secondary. Secondly, it exposes reasoning processes concerned with the theory and practise of law. The book deals in both the areas mentioned, and aims to deal with issues of.
The Palgrave Macmillan Law Masters series is a long-running and successful list of titles offering clear, concise and authoritative guides to the main subject areas, written by experienced and respected authors. This ninth edition of Legal Method provides a lively introduction to the nature of the English legal system and its sources, and to the techniques which lawyers use when handling those sources. The text assumes no prior knowledge and makes its content accessible by clarity of expression rather than by dilution of content. In addition to more conventional sources, writers as varied as Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and T. S. Eliot are cited. This is an ideal course companion for both law undergraduate and GDL/CPE students. Includes end of chapter summaries and self-test exercises.
John Law argues that methods don't just describe social realities but are also involved in creating them. The implications of this argument are highly significant. If this is the case, methods are always political, and it raises the question of what kinds of social realities we want to create. Most current methods look for clarity and precision. It is usually said that only poor research produces messy findings, and the idea that things in the world might be fluid, elusive, or multiple is unthinkable. Law's startling argument is that this is wrong and it is time for a new approach. Many realities, he says, are vague and ephemeral. If methods want to know and help to shape the world, then they need to reinvent themselves and their politics to deal with mess. That is the challenge. Nothing less will do.
ïJan Smits has long been one of the most interesting and original authors on European private law theory. Now he offers his views on legal scholarship, and they are as original as they are thought-provoking. His plea for a legal scholarship that maintains its identity vis-ö-vis neighboring disciplines without collapsing into doctrinairism is bound to yield lively discussions _ and hopefully will help re-establish a proper place for legal scholarship, in Europe and beyond.Í _ Ralf Michaels, Duke University, US ïThe Mind and Method of the Legal Academic is a valuable contribution to the discussion on legal methodology and legal theory, which offers an acute insight in contemporary academic discussions. Smits provides us with fresh ideas as to the (non)importance of social sciences for law, comparative law and what makes an academic discipline. He does so in a clear style and barely hundred pages text. It therefore can be highly recommended to all students of jurisprudence.Í _ Ewoud Hondius, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands ïA wonderful little book which explains to newcomers and old hands alike what legal academics are doing, how they are doing it, how they ought to be doing it, what kind of research environment they would need, and how all this should affect their teaching. Smits brings comparative and interdisciplinary approaches home to the core of scholarly legal work.Í _ Gerhard Dannemann, Centre for British Studies, Berlin, Germany ïThis book is a wide-ranging and bold exploration of the nature of legal scholarship. Lucid and learned, Smits draws upon a variety of sources to recommend a multi-faceted approach to the normative dimension of law. As such, it provides a theoretical base for comparative law but also for any inquiry into what law or legal principle is appropriate for a given problem or situation. All those engaged in critically examining the law will benefit from its insights.Í _ Anthony Ogus, University of Manchester, UK and University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands ïAcademic debate over law and legal scholarship has placed legal research and legal education under pressure. Jan SmitsÍ book is intellectual self-defence of legal scholarship tailored for the needs of tomorrow. The Mind and Method of the Legal Academic is fluid, creative and original. Makes wonderful reading for those who are concerned about the future of legal research and legal education in a globalized world.Í _ Jaakko Husa, University of Lapland, Finland In a context of changing times and current debate, this highly topical book discusses the aims, methods and organization of legal scholarship. Jan Smits assesses the recent turn away from doctrinal research towards a more empirical and theoretical way of legal investigation and offers a fresh perspective on what it is that legal academics should deal with and how they should do it. The book also considers the consequences which follow for the organization of the legal discipline by universities and uses this context to discuss the key questions of the internationalization of law schools, quality assessments, legal education and the research culture. Being the first book to address the aim and goals of legal scholarship in an international context, this insightful study will appeal to academics, graduate students, researchers and policymakers in higher education.
Language skills,study skills, argument skills and legal knowledge are vital to every law student, professional lawyer and academic. Legal Method Reasoning offers a range of 'how to' techniques for acquiring these skills. It shows how to handle and use legal texts, how to read and write about the law, how to acquire disciplined study techniques and how to construct legal arguments. This new edition will be of value to both undergraduate and postgraduate law students.
Until quite recently questions about methodology in legal research have been largely confined to understanding the role of doctrinal research as a scholarly discipline. In turn this has involved asking questions not only about coverage but, fundamentally, questions about the identity of the discipline. Is it (mainly) descriptive, hermeneutical, or normative? Should it also be explanatory? Legal scholarship has been torn between, on the one hand, grasping the expanding reality of law and its context, and, on the other, reducing this complex whole to manageable proportions. The purely internal analysis of a legal system, isolated from any societal context, remains an option, and is still seen in the approach of the French academy, but as law aims at ordering society and influencing human behaviour, this approach is felt by many scholars to be insufficient. Consequently many attempts have been made to conceive legal research differently. Social scientific and comparative approaches have proven fruitful. However, does the introduction of other approaches leave merely a residue of 'legal doctrine', to which pockets of social sciences can be added, or should legal doctrine be merged with the social sciences? What would such a broad interdisciplinary field look like and what would its methods be? This book is an attempt to answer some of these questions.
Language skills, study skills, argument skills and legal knowledge are vital to every law student, professional lawyer and academic. Legal Method, Skills and Reasoning suggests a range of 'how-to' techniques for perfecting these academic and practical skills. It explains how to work with legal texts; how to read and write about the law; how to acquire effective disciplined study techniques; and how to construct legal arguments. Packed full of practical examples and diagrams across the range of legal skills from language and research skills to mooting and negotiation, this edition will be invaluable to law students seeking to acquire a deeper understanding of how to apply each discreet legal skill effectively. This restructured third edition is now additionally supported by a Companion Website offering a wealth of additional resources for individual and group work for both students and lecturers. For students, the Companion Website offers: workbooks for each part, containing guided practical and reflective tasks a series of ‘how-to’ exercises, which help to provide real-life legal skills examples and practice guidance on answering legal problem and essay-style questions self-test quizzes to consolidate learning for each individual legal skill. For lecturers, the Companion Website hosts: a set of PowerPoint slides of the diagrams in the text specimen seminar plans, with supplementary notes to provide support and inspiration for teaching legal skills sample legal skills assessment, and accompanying answers.
This book seeks to question the widely held assumption in Europe that to have knowledge of law is simply to have knowledge of rules. There is a knowledge dimension beyond the symbolic which reaches right into the way facts are perceived, constructed and deconstructed. In support of this thesis the book examines, generally, the question of what it is to have knowledge of law; and this examination embraces not just the conceptual foundations, methods, taxonomy and theories used by jurists. It also examines the epistemological schemes used by social scientists in general in order to show that such schemes are closely related to the schemes of intelligibility used by lawyers and judges.
