The links between law and craft provide a unique and interesting perspective on legal research. By providing a framework for how to think through the tasks and challenges involved in producing legal scholarship, craft practices and concepts provide important insights into what we do as legal scholars. In particular, they shed much needed light on the expertise required for careful deployment of legal methods and techniques and their relationship to scholarly materials and institutional contexts, the social processes underlying our development of legal expertise, and learning how to use obsessive energy well in the pursuit of quality-driven work.
Inaugurating the Legal Research Methods 2023 programme, Professor Fisher’s presentation will be invaluable for assisting Max Planck Law researchers to develop a more precise understanding of how legal materials and methods can be employed to answer specific research questions, and how their selection and application drive substantive knowledge outcomes.