Law in the Liberal Arts

Austin Sarat and the contributors to this collection make engaging arguments in favor of legal education as education and law as central to liberal arts education in the United States today.

I found Law in the Liberal Arts to be a welcome contribution: it is creatively conceived, provocative, and edifying. The chapters are interesting and intelligent; it was rewarding to engage them, think through issues long on the periphery of my intellectual consciousness, and take in some new insights and points of reference.

Law in the Liberal Arts makes a persuasive argument that teaching law should have a central place in the liberal arts. It also makes the more radical claim that our understanding of law needs to be rescued from the law schools. If learning to think like a lawyer is what law school teaches, we also need to step outside the practice of the law and bring to bear on its study critical theory and disciplines of reading learned in the liberal arts.

Sarat and his colleagues have done a superb job of defending law as a liberal art, differentiating it from law as vocational training while never losing sight of the noble purpose served by each.

Should a liberal arts education exclude the study of law? In this fascinating collection, leading law and society scholars argue that the study of law raises basic moral, philosophical, and political questions. They offer provocative ideas about where and how law should fit into a liberal arts education. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking a new perspective on liberal arts education or the possibilities of education in the law.