MA in Liberal Studies Law and Society

The practice and study of law have changed significantly throughout history as has our understanding of its scholarly place and form. Lawyers were once seen as practitioners of a craft who learned their trade through apprenticeship. This conception of law, lawyers, and legal institutions gave way to the belief that law was a system of formalized rules, a conception that, subsequently, has been subject to sustained critique and revision. Starting in the early 1960s, scholars within the Law & Society movement many of them lawyers began studying law from a wide array of scholarly perspectives. Today, researchers from across the academy find themselves dealing with law at some point in their scholarly careers. The Law & Society concentration within the MALS program introduces students to the methodologies, issues, and debates that today form the center of the Law & Society movement.