| dc.description.abstract | First, we like you, reject the purported divide between a legal academy and law practice observed and bemoaned by prominent American jurists like Judges Harry Edwards and Richard Posner. Elite academics like those in this room understand that their scholarship and teaching are enriched by practice and by the insights of practitioners. Elite lawyers and judges like those in this room appreciate that their day-to-day work benefits from insights gleaned from the academy. Law, in short, is a scholarly discipline and a professional vocation, and the best lawyers, teachers, and scholars embrace and embody both the scholarly and the practical.
Second, your work is consistent with our commitment as a school to law in action. We certainly care deeply about legal theory as theory and we recognize that scholarship can be an end in and of itself. But as a faculty here, we are more oriented toward legal scholarship that has real-world impact. Impact on scholarship, of course, but also on lawyers and law practice, judges and judicial decision-making, regulators and regulations, and policymakers and the policies they promulgate.
Third, your work today on scientific evidence is consistent with our institutional commitment to engage with other disciplines. Most of our faculty have meaningful disciplinary training outside of law including doctrinal training in multiple fields. Our faculty holds secondary appointments in many schools and departments on campus including biology, chemistry, economics, history, management, medicine, political science, psychiatry, radiology, and sociology, and we are home to a unique PhD program in law and economics, as well as a law and neuroscience program funded by the MacArthur Foundation. As a school, we therefore believe we are a logical host for you and your work, and we are thrilled that you are here with us. And speaking personally, I'm particularly pleased to have you here at this moment in time because you are devoting yourselves to factfinding and truth-seeking. | en_US |
