CURRENT LEGAL PROBLEMS LECTURE SERIES 2012-13

I Fought the Law and the Law Won?
Legal Consciousness, Cultural Theory and
the Critical Imagination

by

Professor Simon Halliday
University of York Law School

(paper co-authored by Professor Bronwen Morgan,
University of Bristol) 

on Thursday 29 November 2012, from 6-7pm

Venue:
UCL Law Faculty
Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens
London WC1H 0EG

Accredited with 1 CPD hour by the
Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board (Pending)

About this lecture:

This paper explores the legal consciousness of society – the characterisations of law and legality which are socially constructed and become common currency in everyday life. We critically evaluate the influential account of legal consciousness by Ewick and Silbey in their seminal book The Common Place of Law and explore their claim that the interplay of their identified legal consciousness narratives accounts for the hegemonic power of law in society. We draw on the cultural theory of Mary Douglas to argue that more attention must be paid to counter-hegemonic orientations to state law. We develop our analysis through secondary analysis of a study of radical environmental activists and, in doing so, ask what images and imaginings of law and legality have underpinned their activism.

About the speaker: 

Simon Halliday is a Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of York and a Conjoint Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales. He has published widely in the field of socio-legal studies, particularly in relation to public law and administrative justice. He has recently edited An Introduction to the  Study of Law (W Green/Sweet & Maxwell, 2012) and co-edited Conducting Law & Society Research (Cambridge University Press, 2009). He is author of Judicial Review and Compliance with Administrative Law (Hart Publishing, 2004) and co-author of The Appeal of Internal Review (Hart Publishing, 2003).

Bronwen Morgan is a Professor of Socio-legal Studies at the University of Bristol and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of New South Wales. She has published widely in the field of socio-legal studies, particularly in relation to regulation and comparative and transnational governance. She is currently co-editing Understanding the Rise of the Regulatory State of the South (Oxford University Press, 2013)  and will shortly co-publish a special issue of the same title in the journal Regulation and Governance. She is author of Water on Tap: Rights and Regulation in the Transnational Governance of Urban Water Services (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Social Citizenship in the Shadow of Competition (Ashgate Press, 2003), and co-author of An Introduction to Law and Regulation (Cambridge University Press, 2007).