Law in Context: Teaching Legal Studies Through the Lens of Extra‐Legal Sources

• Date: 01 June 2012
• Published date: 01 June 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1722.2012.01104.x

Journal of Legal Studies Education

Volume 29, Issue 2, 155–189, Summer/Fall 2012

Law in Context: Teaching Legal

Studies Through the Lens of

Extra-Legal Sources

Sandra K. Miller∗and Larry A. DiMatteo∗∗

Roscoe Pound noted that law and society interact and flow between one another:

“law . .. reflect[s] the needs of a well-ordered society and in [turn] influences

that society.”1

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to persuade legal studies teachers of the

benefits of using works from other disciplines to illustrate the rationales

for law, the greater context in which the legal order operates, and the

relationship between law and society. The tangential benefits of using

works from other disciplines are the enhancement of the joy of teach-

ing, improvement of the attention and imagination of students, and

the broadening of the minds of students who may lack a broad expo-

sure to the humanities. Some maintain that instruction in the humani-

ties is a critical tool in shaping democratic citizens.2Materials from the

∗Professor, Economics, Law & Taxation Department, School of Business Administration,

Widener University.

∗∗Huber Hurst Professor of Contract Law & Legal Studies, Warrington College of Business

Administration, University of Florida.

1A. Javier Treviˇ

no, Introduction, in Roscoe Pound, Social Control Through Law xxi (1942)

(1997).

2See Eli Savit, Nussbaum: Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, 109Mich.L.Rev.1175,

1175–76 (2011) (reviewing Nussbaum’s thesis that the study of literature, history and philosophy,

and art helps students build essential democratic capacities like empathy and critical thought).

C2012 The Authors

Journal of Legal Studies Education C2012 Academy of Legal Studies in Business

155

156 Vol. 29 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education

humanities3and social sciences4or “Extra-Legal Sources” (ELS) engage stu-

dents in different ways and are well suited to teaching students possessing a

range of individual learning styles. The value of an interdisciplinary approach

to teaching legal studies is that it provides another means to enhance student

understanding.5

Part I provides an introduction to the use of ELS in the curriculum to

teach legal studies. It provides a brief overview of the literature dealing with

ELS. It discusses the nature of the interdisciplinary approach to legal stud-

ies teaching, prior literature, and how the current recommendations build

upon the work of prior legal education scholars. Part II addresses how ELS

can broaden critical thinking skills, and engage students on both an emo-

tional and a cognitive level. Part III focuses on four sources that provide a

rich, interdisciplinary context for discussing legal principles including works

relating to the trial of Adolph Eichmann,6a penetrating film on the corrup-

tion of law, Hitler’s Courts: Betrayal of the Rule of Law in Nazi Germany,7a classic

adventure story, Lord of the Flies,8and the book The Help,9by Kathryn Stock-

ett. Part IV provides classroom examples of how specific assignments drawing

3The “humanities” broadly defined includes art, classical languages, literature, music, and phi-

losophy. An associated name would be “arts and letters.” See http://www.merriam-webster.com/

dictionary/humanity (defining humanities as the branches of learning (as philosophy, arts, or

languages) that investigate human constructs and concerns as opposed to natural processes

(as in physics or chemistry) and social sciences (as in anthropology or economics)); see also

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20sciences (defining social science as a

branch of science that deals with the institutions and functioning of human society and with the

interpersonal relationships of individuals as members of society).

4The social sciences include fields of study, such as economics, history, psychology, political

science, and sociology, that deal with an aspect of society.

5See Jane B. Baron, Law, Literature, and the Problem of Interdisciplinarity,108 Yale L.J. 1059 (1999);

Jane B. Baron, Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship as Guilty Pleasure: The Case of Law and Literature,

in Law and Literature (Michael D.A. Freeman & Andrew D.E. Lewis eds., 1999).

6Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (rev. ed.

1965).

7Hitler’s Courts: Betrayal of The Rule of Law in Nazi Germany (Touro Law

College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center 2006), available at http://www.atma.org/films/

hitler%E2%80%99s-courts-2006. This film was produced and directed by Joshua M. Greene

and Shiva Kumar.

8William Golding, Lord of the Flies (2003).

9Kathryn Stockett, The Help (2009).

2012 / Law in Context 157

from these sources can enrich a business school or law school curriculum.

Appendix A includes a list of recommended readings.

I. An Introduction to ELS

ELS is not new to the pedagogy of law. For example, the law and literature

movement weaves together the disciplines of law and literature and is espe-

cially well developed.10 However, ELS moves beyond the law and literature

movement and draws more broadly from the humanities and the social sci-

ences to help students understand the important implications of law and

social policy in human terms.11 Although both approaches are interdisci-

plinary, ELS contemplates the use of perspectives from a broader range of

disciplines to help students critically analyze the law on many levels. For

example, ELS asks “What constitutes the law? How does the law affect indi-

viduals? How could the law be changed? How should the law be changed?

What does the law mean on an individual and societal level?”

Although some of the prior recommendations using ELS have focused

on honors courses, the present recommendations can be used as an integral

part of a basic introductory business law or legal environment course.12 The

10The law and literature movement began in earnest during the 1980s. See Guyora Binder &

Robert Weisberg, Literary Criticisms of Law (2000); Benjamin N. Cardozo, Law and

Literature: And Other Essays (1931); Lenora Ledwon, Law and Literature: Text and

Theory (1996) (collection of essays, as well as excerpts from works of literature including, works

of poetry, drama, prose fiction, prose nonfiction; the excerpts are allocated among the different

topics of the book: “Law, Justice, and Ethics,” “Law and Worldview,” “Law and Punishment,”

“Law and Oppression: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality,” “Law, Language, and Narrative

Structure,” and “Law and Comedy); Gary Minda, Post Modern Legal Movements 149–

66 (1995) (short analysis of the law and literature movement). It should be noted that the

affinity of law and literature, whether viewed as law in literature or law as literature, predates

the “law and literature movement.” See, e.g., Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature (3d

ed. 2009), Tony Sharpe, Law and Literature (1999); Ian Ward, Law and Literature:

Possibilities and Perspectives (1995) (with chapter titles including: “Shakespeare Revisited,”

“Children Literature and Legal Ideology,” “Law, Literature and Feminism,” and “Law and Justice

in the Modern Novel”); James Boyd White, The Legal Imagination (1973); John Fischer,

Literature/Reading Law: Is There a Literary Jurisprudence?,72Tex. L. Rev. 135 (1993); Frank J.

Loesch, Is Acquaintance with Legal Novels Essential to a Lawyer?,21Ill. L. Rev. 109 (1926), reprinted

in 5Tenn. L. Rev. 133 (1927); John H. Wigmore, A List of One Hundred Legal Novels,17Ill L.

Rev. 26 (1921).

11See generally Penelope Pether, Failure of the Word: Is There Anything Outside the Class? Law, Litera-

ture, and Pedagogy, 26 J. Cardozo L. Rev. 2415 (2005).

12See Robert B. Bennett, Jr., Legal History Meets the Honors Program, 26 J. Legal Stud. Educ. 211,

236 (2009).