Law In Our Lives

"Law in Our Lives is a survey text intended primarily for courses in law and society that are taught from a more sociological perspective. It treats law as a complex, evolving, interdisciplinary field, which also makes it suitable for courses in legal history and philosophy. The book is known for its lucid writing style as well as its comprehensiveness--which is viewed as a benefit by some and a drawback by others. It combines detailed theoretical discussions with real-world examples to provide a broad analysis of the nature of law in contemporary society. It includes a wide array of pedagogical material, including boldfaced key terms and discussion questions, as well as appendices on case briefing, law in films, and websites of interest"--

This book is based on the assumption that the world is governed by a widespread field of interconnected laws. In this field man-made laws – legal laws - have to coexist with the laws of nature, the laws of science and the laws of logic. They have to find their place in relation to a certain society. They have to relate to the demands of morality, ethics, custom and trust. They have to follow the laws of language. They have to deal with a variety of professional and esthetic rules. They have to defend their position between art and craft. Finally, and significantly, they have to cope with a host of different ideas about truth. This book approaches law as a human construct meant to strengthen society as it develops through the ages. Knowledge of the law – legal knowledge – is of doubtful value if it ignores the demands and ideals of society. The same goes for the thinking leading to legal knowledge. This book focuses on a basic concept. That concept is met if the legal thinking, leading to legal knowledge, reaches the level of an independent, law and society oriented, contemplative discipline. A discipline which is in that sense and to that extent in touch with - cherished or less cherished - parts of given law.

According to Judith Baer, feminist legal scholarship today does not effectively address the harsh realities of women's lives. Feminists have marginalized themselves, she argues, by withdrawing from mainstream intellectual discourse. In Our Lives Before the Law, Baer thus presents the framework for a new feminist jurisprudence--one that would return feminism to relevance by connecting it in fresh and creative ways with liberalism. Baer starts from the traditional feminist premise that the legal system has a male bias and must do more to help women combat violence and overcome political, economic, and social disadvantages. She argues, however, that feminist scholarship has over-corrected for this bias. By emphasizing the ways in which the system fails women, feminists have lost sight of how it can be used to promote women's interests and have made it easy for conventional scholars to ignore legitimate feminist concerns. In particular, feminists have wrongly linked the genuine flaws of conventional legal theory to its basis in liberalism, arguing that liberalism focuses too heavily on individual freedom and not enough on individual responsibility. In fact, Baer contends, liberalism rests on a presumption of personal responsibility and can be used as a powerful intellectual foundation for holding men and male institutions more accountable for their actions. The traditional feminist approach, Baer writes, has led to endless debates about such abstract matters as character differences between men and women, and has failed to deal sufficiently with concrete problems with the legal system. She thus constructs a new feminist interpretation of three central components of conventional theory--equality, rights, and responsibility--through analysis of such pressing legal issues as constitutional interpretation, reproductive choice, and fetal protection. Baer concludes by presenting the outline of what she calls "feminist post-liberalism": an approach to jurisprudence that not only values individual freedoms but also recognizes our responsibility for addressing individuals' needs, however different those may be for men and women. Powerfully and passionately written, Our Lives Before the Law will have a major impact on the future course of feminist legal scholarship.

Court decisions are typically seen as one-off interventions relating to an incident in a person’s life, but a legal decision can impact on the person as they were and the person they will become. This book is the first to explore the interactions of the law with the life course in order to understand the complex life journey as a whole. Jonathan Herring reveals how the law privileges ‘middle age’ to the detriment of the whole life story and explains why an understanding of the life course is important for lawyers. Relevant to those working in family law, elder law, medical law and ethics, jurisprudence, gender and the law, it will promote new thinking by exploring the engagement of the law with the life course of the self.

Knight outlines how some of the main contours of American law came to be as he recounts 21 stories beginning with Alfred the Great in the late 19th century and ending with the Rodney King trials in 1993.

Are you alive? What makes you so sure? Most people believe this question has a clear answer—that some law defines our status as living (or not) for all purposes. But they are dead wrong. In this pioneering study, Elizabeth Price Foley examines the many, and surprisingly ambiguous, legal definitions of what counts as human life and death. Foley reveals that “not being dead” is not necessarily the same as being alive, in the eyes of the law. People, pre-viable fetuses, and post-viable fetuses have different sets of legal rights, which explains the law's seemingly inconsistent approach to stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, frozen embryos, in utero embryos, contraception, abortion, homicide, and wrongful death. In a detailed analysis that is sure to be controversial, Foley shows how the need for more organ transplants and the need to conserve health care resources are exerting steady pressure to expand the legal definition of death. As a result, death is being declared faster than ever before. The "right to die," Foley worries, may be morphing slowly into an obligation to die. Foley’s balanced, accessible chapters explore the most contentious legal issues of our time—including cryogenics, feticide, abortion, physician-assisted suicide, brain death, vegetative and minimally conscious states, informed consent, and advance directives—across constitutional, contract, tort, property, and criminal law. Ultimately, she suggests, the inconsistencies and ambiguities in U.S. laws governing life and death may be culturally, and perhaps even psychologically, necessary for an enormous and diverse country like ours.

Gerald Le Dain (1924–2007) was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1984. This collectively written biography traces fifty years of his steady, creative, and conciliatory involvement with military service, the legal academy, legislative reform, university administration, and judicial decision-making. This book assembles contributions from the in-house historian of the law firm where Le Dain first practised, from students and colleagues in the law schools where he taught, from a research associate in his Commission of Inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs, from two of his successors on the Federal Court of Appeal, and from three judicial clerks to Le Dain at the Supreme Court of Canada. Also reproduced here is a transcript of a recent CBC documentary about his 1988 forced resignation from the Supreme Court following a short-term depressive illness, with commentary from Le Dain’s family and co-workers. Gerald Le Dain was a tireless worker and a highly respected judge. In a series of essays that cover the different periods and dimensions of his career, Tracings of Gerald Le Dain’s Life in the Law is an important and compassionate account of one man's commitment to the law in Canada. Contributors include Harry W. Arthurs, G. Blaine Baker, Bonnie Brown, Rosemary Cairns-Way, John M. Evans, Melvyn Green, Bernard J. Hibbitts, Peter W. Hogg, Richard A. Janda, C. Ian Kyer, Andree Lajoie, Gerald E. Le Dain, Allen M. Linden, Roderick A. Macdonald, Louise Rolland, and Stephen A. Scott.