Albion College

Law, Justice, and Society

Law is one of the most significant expressions of a society’s social and political development. We live in a period of widespread public interest in law that arises from a concern with problems of social justice, social control, and social deviance. The traditional academic disciplines have increasingly focused on such issues as the nature and origin of law, law-making and law-breaking, rights and obligations, and freedom and responsibility. These are matters of increasing concern to teachers, social workers, business executives, doctors, and public servants whose professional responsibilities demand knowledge of the relationship of law to their own fields.

The goals of this interdisciplinary concentration, which is selected in addition to an academic major, are to affirm the intellectual importance of the study of law and society and to provide a framework whereby faculty and students may explore different approaches to law by using the resources of one or more disciplines. The curriculum is designed to equip students with the knowledge to understand legal institutions, practices, and ideas, and also to grasp their relationship to larger social, economic, and political forces. The concentration in law, justice, and society should be seen within the context of undergraduate liberal education. That is, it is not a preprofessional program, but is designed for interested students, whatever their future career orientation.

Neither the American Bar Association (ABA) nor the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) recommends a specific course of pre-law studies. Instead, both recommend a broad-based undergraduate program of study that encourages the acquisition of critical reading, writing, and analytical skills—i.e., a liberal arts education.