What is legal education for? Reassessing the purposes of early twenty-first century learning and law schools

Abstract

considers the tension between majoritarian political institutions such as Parliament and the judiciary. It is concerned with the perceived need to safeguard fundamental rights and the linked need to protect minorities from what J. S. Mill in On Liberty called the tyranny of the majority. In chapter 9 the author subjects the work of Sumption to critical analysis (at pp. 150–55) in what is the most sustained engagement with another legal theorist in the book. The book is not as integrated as it could be, and the theoretical material it introduces does not structure the work or inform the analysis of the substantive content. In places it is quite a difficult read for undergraduate students and the whole book is rather court centric. It gives insight into how judges see their role in public law cases, it provides an expert overview of recent developments in public law, and chapter 4 (and the first part of chapter 5) is an accessibly written original and valuable analysis.