“Lawyer in the Social Sciences”—Geoffrey Sawer
| Published date | 01 September 1980 |
| Date | 01 September 1980 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0067205X8001100303 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
"LAWYER
IN
THE
SOCIAL
SCIENCES"-GEOFFREY
SAWER
By
Ross CRANSTON*
In his inaugural lecture at the Australian National University in 1953,
Geoffrey Sawer identified under four main heads the relationship of the
lawyer to the social sciences.! First, law and legal administration consti-
tute one of the major kinds of social control so that no study of society
as awhole can ignore them. Secondly, law has abearing on awide
range of social activities, such
as
those which are the focus of attention
of political scientists, students of industrial relations, and so on. Thirdly,
the lawyer has to develop legal theory and an important aspect of this
is to draw on the findings of the other social sciences. The final point
concerns keeping in touch with traditional legal studies and legal
administration. It
is
the third point, or at least some aspects of it, which
are the main focus of this essay.
Relatively
few
of Sawer's prolific writings are straightforward
expo~
sitions of the law, and most touch upon, and in so doing cast important
light on, aspects of legal theory. For instance, Sawer has written about
the contribution of legal theory to law reform; the problem of making
government subject to the very legal system which
is
in
asense
it~
creation; the way particular groups use law as an instrument of control
over other groups; how different legal institutions and norms are
thro~
up in different societies and in the same society in its different historica!
phases; and the ingredients of legal change, including economic and
political factors, personal influences, and the work of those within
the
legal system.2It
is
impossible to do justice to these many issues in
thi$
brief essay. Thus the discussion proceeds
as
follows: the first part makes
brief mention of Sawer's
view
of traditional legal theory and what
he
sees as its inadequacies; then attention is given to Sawer's account o(
legal reasoning and of the legal and social factors which he
consider~
enter into this, and to his interpretation of the process in his own
work';
finally, there
is
some discussion of Sawer's general
views
of what
thos~
interested in law and the legal system can draw from the social sciences
and whether it
is
possible to develop asociology of law.
While acknowledging that analytical jurisprudence performs auseful
function "by clearing away inherited superstitions and dogmatisms, and
by making us aware that
few,
if any, of the concepts used by lawyers
have a
priori
necessity",3 Sawer believes that it over-emphasises the
*B.A., LL.B. (Qld),LL.M. (Harvard), D.Phi!. (Oxon); Senior Research
Fellow, Research School
of
Social Sciences, Australian National University. My
thanks
to
Anne Schick in the preparation
of
this article.
1Sawer, The Place
of
aLawyer in the Social Sciences (1953).
%E.g. Sawer, ''The Legal Theory
of
Law Reform" (1970) 20 University
of
Toronto Law Journal 183; Law in Society (1965); "The Western Conception
of
Law" in Zweigert (ed.), International Encyclopedia
of
Comparative Law (1973)
ii, ch.
1,
'The Legal Systems of The World. Their Comparison and Unification' 14-48;
"Nationalism
in
the Working
of
the Federal Constitution" (1969) 3Teaching
History 36.
3Sawer, "Government as Personalized Legal Entity"
in
Webb (ed.), Legal
263
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