TILT Seminar: Prof. Michal Alberstein, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

How is legal culture affected by more than a century of critique of the various claims of law for formality? In Western legal cultures, law is posited as: a separate science; apolitical; given to mechanical application; dispassionate; procedurally built for rational adjudication based on facts and norms; and detached from practice. These six tenets of formalism have been under attack in past decades, beginning in U.S. legal culture and expanding to other countries, resulting in various reconstructions, including novel notions of social activism, judicial discretion, consideration of relational, behavioral and economic perspectives and new modes of governance. Through an ethnographic, socio-legal approach, my research comparatively examines the alleged “death of law” and its possible resurrections. Theoretically, it develops a jurisprudence after critique, analyzing core intellectual legal foundations and reconstructions in eight legal cultures – the U.S., Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Israel and England and Wales. Comparatively, the tenets of legal formalism, the play among them, and their reconstructions will be studied in each legal culture at five legal sites: legal academia, legal rhetoric, private and public law offices, legal clinics and layperson perspectives. Empirically, the tenets of formalism will be operationalized and relationships among them examined across legal cultures. Reconstructions of formalism will be studied in post-formalist legal cultures and on the transnational level. Methodologically, the research develops new methods, including machine learning platforms, to measure formalism in legal rhetoric, to mine legal data and to evaluate public trust in reference to formalism of law. Prescriptively, the research establishes platforms to encourage reflexivity and learning on contemporary legal identities in transition. It opens the door to understanding non-Western legal cultures and other professions in crisis.

Background reading:

Alberstein, Michal, Gabay-Egozi, Limor, & Bogoch, Bryna. (2019):

BETWEEN FORMALISM AND DISCRETION: MEASURING TRENDS IN SUPREME COURT RHETORIC.

Speaker:  Prof. Michal Alberstein (Bar-Ilan University, Israel).

Michal Alberstein, SJD Harvard University; LLB, BA, Tel-Aviv University; is a professor at The Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She is the Primary Investigator on an ERC consolidator grant to study Judicial Conflict Resolution (JCR) and the academic director of eight legal clinics. She is the academic chairperson of “Israeli hope” project, supported by the president of Israel and High Council of Education. She is the 2017 winner of Fattal prize for distinguished legal scholars; 2016 winner of the Bar Ilan University rector prize for significant academic achievement; 2001-2004 winner of Alon scholarship for excellent scientists, and a world renown expert in conflict resolution. She teaches jurisprudence and conflict resolution. Her current research deals with theories of law and conflict resolution and their intellectual roots; multiculturalism and its relation to negotiation and mediation; representations of conflict resolution in literature and film; trauma and memory: medical, legal and cultural perspectives, judicial work of settlement and conflict resolution. She is the author and co-editor of numerous books and articles in English and Hebrew, including the following books: Pragmatism and Law: From Philosophy to Disputes Resolution (UK 2002); Jurisprudence of Mediation (Magnes 2007, in Hebrew); Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing and Making Law (Stanford University Press, 2007); Alterative Justice: Mediating, Restoring and Healing through Legal Institutions (2014, in Hebrew).

SSRN Author page

http://jcrlab.com/

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXF_IJaFk-9C5MN9cT2CJa3hKW28fQSXX

Moderator: Prof. Giorgio Monti, Professor of Competition law at TILT (Tilburg Law School)

*Attendance is free. To register for this event please contact: Maartje van Genk