The office of the jurisprudent : the status and care of the dying and the dead

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Law.The central concern of this thesis is the investigation of a contemporary ethic of the office of the jurisprudent – that is, someone who cares for the conduct of lawful relations or ways of belonging to law. This thesis investigates the ways in which jurisprudents understand their office and the conduct of office and links two questions: ‘How is it possible to die well before the common law?’ and ‘How are the dead placed and cared for before the law?’. It responds to these questions in three ways. First by developing an ethic of office through analysing the competing repertoires, commitments and limits of the conduct of the office of the common law jurisprudent. Second, by analysing the repertoires of legal action in the care of the dying and dead. Third, by evaluating the persona (character) of the jurisprudent. This thesis is presented as a contribution both to the elaboration of an ethic of office of the jurisprudent and to developing forms of rhetorically inflected jurisprudence directed towards the conduct of lawful relations in the dying and the dead