Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T09:31:56.784Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - LAWYERS AND MAINE'S JURISPRUDENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2009

Get access

Summary

BEING A LAWYER

Modern jurisprudence is largely unconcerned with the problems which are of greatest importance to practitioners. For instance, in many countries the practising lawyers of the mid-twentieth century have been concerned with the question: if the law is to be effectively and fairly administered is it necessary to have a politically powerful and independent organisation of professional lawyers? Admittedly, academics have asked this question in some contexts; it is seen as being of obvious significance for a critical analysis of legal professions and the provision of legal services. But academics have not seen it as being primarily a jurisprudential issue which may be decided by, say, discovering some necessary quality of law or integrating historical facts about legal practice into legal philosophy.

For someone such as Maine, this modern approach would seem strange and inappropriate. In so far as jurisprudence was concerned with the study of ideas about law it was an odd view of the subject which excluded from consideration the ideas which were regarded as important by those who actually practised law. Maine himself wished very much to know the answer to questions such as: how did being a lawyer change the way in which a man thought about the law? What was it in progressive societies which could set off a reaction in legal thought which produced a preponderant role firstly for fictions, secondly for equity and thirdly for statutes?

Type
Chapter
Information
Sir Henry Maine
A Study in Victorian Jurisprudence
, pp. 39 - 51
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×