In the spirit of weber 233 tage of the flexibility, discretion and inherently open-ended character of the law to create semi-autonomous realms; for example, by using the state law order (facilitative laws such as the laws governing contract, property, companies, the family) to secure a special legal regime for their clients and, therefore, a degree of autonomy from the state legal order.^^ So much, then, for the form and content of English law. What about legal education and legal science? Ill: Legal Education and Legal Science Weber’s discussion of the poverty of English legal education and science is amply confirmed. Incidentally, Weber is almost unique among historians and sociologists in recognising the causal importance of the form of legal education and scholarship on the formand content of the law. As for the empirical data, the impoverished nature of English legal education and scholarship was a recurrent concern within and without the profession throughout the Industrial Revolution. In fact, the role of English universities in legal education is relatively recent.Traditionally, English lawyers have learnt their lawby way of apprenticeship. In essence, from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century formal, professional and university legal education were almost non-existent. The impoverished state of English legal education, legal literature and legal science was a frequent theme of contemporary legal literature. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Select Committee on Legal Education, created by the House of Commons in 1846 concluded that: “No Legal Education worthy of the name of a public nature is at this moment to be had in either England or Ireland.”^'* No wonder John Austin opined that: “Turning away from study of English to the study of Roman law, you escape from the empire of chaos and darkness to a world which seems, by comparison, the region of order and light. ”65 See, D. Sugarman, “Law, Economy and the State in England, I750-I9I4”, op. cit., pp. 21521,230-33, 253-59, and D. Sugarman and G. Rubin, op. cit., pp. 9-18, 47-52, 84-91, 111-23; H.W. Arthurs, “Special Courts, Special Law: Legal Pluralism in 19th Century England”, in G. Rubin and D. Sugarman (eds.), ibid., pp. 380-411; and H. Hartog, “Pigs and Positivism”, Wisconsin Law Review, 1985, pp. 899-935. See, generally, B. Abel-Smith and R. Stevens, Lawyers and the Courses, (London: Heinemann, 1967v, pp. 63—76, 165-86 and 349-76; D. Sugarman, “The Legal Boundaries of Liberty: Dicey, Liberalism and Legal Science”, Modern Law Review46, 1983, pp. 102-12 and “Legal Theory. The Common Law Mind and the Making of the Text-Book Tradition”, in W. Twining, (ed.). Legal Theory and Common Law, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), pp. 26-61. Report from the Select Committee on Legal-Education PPX (1846), p. 1. J. Austin, Lectures inJurisprudence , 2 vols. 5th ed., London: John Murray, 1885), p. 58.
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