The Legalization of American Society

Law, delivered the introduction to the symposium . He described law libraries as symbols of the importance of the word in legal education and law practice, since it is in libraries that students learn to draw on, and to shape, the written word . Dedication of the library addition, he said , provides an opportunity to express our commitment to the humanistic ideal, an expression all the more significant when the place of the word in law training appears to be under concentrated attack. The faculty committee\u27s choice of a topic for the conference, The Legalization of American Society, clearly serves that end. Its breadth encourages the exploration of a range of legal subject matters. The topic reflects a popular perception that a significant expansion of law has occurred in recent years; that areas earlier free of governmental and legal intervention have become fields for legal regulation; and that in areas earlier subjected to legal controls, new and more intrusive forms of regulation are being applied. The symposium should examine the validity of these popular perceptions of the growth of legal regulation and , if they proved accurate, examine the possible causes and consequences