Free hands and minds : pioneering Australian legal scholars / by Susan Bartie.

Oxford : Hart Publishing, 2019.

1st edition

89310

Brett, Peter, -- 1918-1975.

Tay, Alice Erh-Soon, -- 1934-2004.

Sawer, Geoffrey, -- 1910-1996.

Law teachers -- Australia -- Biography.

Lawyers -- Australia -- Biography.

1. Introduction

2. Australian legal academics: a short intellectual history

Part A. Peter Brett

3. Brett and the Americanisation of Australian law schools

4. The first theory for teaching Australian criminal law

5. One of Australia's pillars of justice?

6. A professor of jurisprudence

Part B. Alice Erh-Soon Tay

7. Morality and the legal academy

8. Tay and the department of jurisprudence: reigniting

9. Tay and the department of jurisprudence: Stone's successor

10. Tay and the department of jurisprudence: an academic entrepreneur

11. Critic of Australia's legal academy

Part C. Geoffrey Sawer

12. Politics, law and society

13. A case against law's autonomy

14. Sawer and the research school of social sciences

15. Sawer and the future of Australian academic law

16. Conclusion.

Peter Brett (1918-1975), Alice Erh-Soon Tay (1934-2004) and Geoffrey Sawer (1910-1996) are key, yet largely overlooked, members of Australia's first community of legal scholars. This book is a critical study of how their ideas and endeavors contributed to Australia's discipline of law and the first Australian legal theories. It examines how three marginal figures - a Jewish man (Brett), a Chinese woman (Tay), and a war orphan (Sawer) - rose to prominence during a transformative period for Australian legal education and scholarship. Drawing on in-depth interviews with former colleagues and students, extensive archival research, and an appraisal of their contributions to scholarship and teaching, this book explores the three professors' international networks and broader social and historical milieux. Their pivotal leadership roles in law departments at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and the Australian National University are also critically assessed. Ranging from local experiences and the concerns of a nascent Australian legal academy to the complex transnational phenomena of legal scholarship and theory, Free Hands and Minds makes a compelling case for contextualising law and legal culture within society. At a time of renewed crisis in legal education and research in the common law world, it also offers a vivid, nuanced and critical account of the enduring liberal foundations of Australia's discipline of law. - Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9781509922611

xviii, 323 p. : ill. ; 25 cm