Perspectives on Law

Catalog description

Property, Torts, Criminal Law, Contracts and Constitutional Law, these subjects have longed comprised the fundamental curriculum in Anglo-American law schools. When you studied these subjects at the start of law school, you encountered a great number of legal rules and principles, for example, in tort, the definition of the standard of care in terms of the reasonable person or, in contract, the principle that promises are only enforceable if they are given for consideration, or in criminal law, the principle that criminal liability requires both an act and mens rea. The first-year treatment of these topics, however, offers little time to ask questions about the broader purposes of these long-standing rules. It is one thing to know the rules; it is another to understand the main answers that have been offered to questions like: What purposes do these rules serve? Why does our law prefer these rules rather than others? Are the rules just a collection of different historical developments or do they add up to an intelligent and possibly attractive picture of how people can live together on terms of mutual freedom and equality? These are not just questions for a rainy day. While the rules and principles of law are taken for granted in routine trial work, questions about the larger purposes of the rules tend to arise in appellate cases, where courts have to interpret the rules and extend them in new situations. This is why a familiarity with different theoretical perspectives on law belongs in the toolkit of a well-rounded lawyer. Members of this seminar will have an opportunity to revisit core legal rules and principles at a more reflective level, and to become acquainted with the diverse theoretical justifications that have been offered for them in the best classic and contemporary writing. We will argue with one another about the holdings in a few controversial cases as…