UBC Press Lawyers’ Empire: Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780-1950 (Law and Society)

Approaching the legal profession through the lens of cultural history, Wes Pue explores the social roles that lawyers imagined for themselves in England and its empire from the late-eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Each chapter focuses on a moment when lawyers sought to reshape their profession while at the same time imagining they were shaping nation and empire in the process. As an exploration of the relationship between legal professionals and liberalism, this book draws attention to recurrent tensions in between how lawyers have best assured their own economic well-being while simultaneously advancing the causes of liberty, cultural authority, stability, and continuity. Review The many admirers of Wes Pue’s distinctive approach to the history of the legal profession will not be disappointed by this latest collection of his work, the culmination of decades of pioneering research on lawyers, their corporate culture, and their socio-political engagements. In a series of perceptive microstudies traversing Imperial Britain and the British Empire, informed by wide-ranging theoretical and multi-disciplinary perspectives, Pue unravels the complexities and contradictions of professional rhetoric and the lived reality of legal lives. Author: Wilfrid Prest, Professor Emeritus of History and of Law at the University of Adelaide Book Description In a series of thought-provoking essays, Wes Pue explores the social roles lawyers imagined for themselves in England and its empire from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. From the Author W. Wesley Pue is a professor of law at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. He is past president of the Canadian Law and Society Association, past provost at UBC’s Okanagan campus, and past vice-provost for UBC’s Vancouver campus. His work has been published in law journals around the world, and his book-length publications include Law School: The Story of Legal Education in British Columbia; Lawyers and Vampires: Cultural Histories of Legal Professions (co-edited with David Sugarman); Misplaced Traditions: Colonial and Post-colonial Approaches to Legal Professions in British Colonies (co-edited with Robert McQueen); and Pepper in Our Eyes: The APEC Affair. About the Author W. Wesley Pue is a professor of law at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia.