United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, law and society activities are usually referred to as sociolegal studies, this being generally understood to mean the use of concepts or methods taken from the social sciences and humanities in the study of legal phenomena, as Sally Wheeler noted. Such a broad definition encompasses the work of not only those academics who would describe themselves as pursuing sociolegal studies but also the large number of scholars who see their work as being the pursuit of blackletter or doctrinal analysis and think it important “to introduce contextual issues (social, political, economic, and so forth)” into their work (Cownie 2004: 55).

The term sociolegal studies also covers the work of those in the critical legal theory movement, feminist scholars, and others who use concepts and methods from outside law in their research and teaching but who, for a variety of reasons, do not choose to use the term sociolegal studies when categorizing their work. Defined in this way, as Anthony Bradney and Fiona Cownie argued, sociolegal study is now the dominant approach taken by most academics in British university law schools. In addition, a range of scholars in academic departments outside university law schools focus on legal phenomena, making their work by definition sociolegal in its nature.