Legal Education and Legal Theory: The Determined Province of Jurisprudence Textbooks

This article looks at the lessons about law, justice and morality conveyed by jurisprudence textbooks published and sold in the UK. Through a detailed statistical analysis of which legal theories appear and the depth in which they are covered, it shows that these textbooks by and large have a standard content. Based on this analysis, the article argues that this canonical content fails to fulfil the full potential legal theory offers in enabling students to gain a comprehensive and critical understanding of the law they study, and to prepare them for the value choices they might need to make in practice. In particular, it argues that the focus of the theories and jurisprudential issues discussed fails to sufficiently challenge the view of law as a valuable protector of individual freedom and as applying more or less in the way portrayed in the book. In fact, a detailed analysis of the way jurisprudential content is structured and presented through various rhetorical techniques suggests that in some cases textbook content stems from subconscious or even conscious political choices about what law students should learn. But whether this is the case or not, it can be concluded that there is a need for jurisprudence textbooks to diversify and rethink their focus and emphasis in the theories and issues they cover if they are going to fulfil their potential as an essential form of legal education.