The conference, which addressed the role of legal scholarship outside of professional fields, was planned and organized by Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science Austin Sarat. "How are the concerns of the liberal arts enriched by legal scholarship … and how is legal scholarship enriched by the concerns of the liberal arts?" asked Sarat in his welcoming speech to the attendees of the conference. This was the first conference of its kind to be held at the College.
"Part of the reason that the conference was held was to acknowledge the substantial contribution of scholars in the liberal arts to legal scholarship and to think about what the relationship is between the two," said Sarat.
Prior to the conference, selected professors had been asked to write papers that either gave an example of or their opinions on the subject of the conference. Eight professors presented their works at the conference to an audience of approximately 50 professors.
"Each of the people giving presentations is a prominent scholar of law whose institutional location was not in a law school. They were chosen in a sense to represent different fields," said Sarat.
The speakers were followed by another scholar who acted as a moderator on the subject.
"A moderator is in effect a kind of commentator on a paper. We reflected on the paper that was given to make connections between the papers and the larger purpose of the conference," said Associate Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought (LJST) Martha Umphrey who acted as a moderator to Princeton University Professor of History Hendrik Hartog's paper, "Romancing the Quotation."
Once the moderator finished, the floor was opened to members of the audience.
"The format of the conference is very effective when you have one particular topic or question," said Umphrey. "It's very conducive to discussion, which was the larger goal of the conference."
The conference ended with a final overview by Sarat and a dinner for the attendees.
Other attendees of the conference included University of California at Berkeley Professor of Rhetoric Marianne Constable, Oberlin College Professor of Politics Ronald Kahn and MIT Professor of Anthropology Susan Silbey.
"It was part of the success of the conference that it really drew together a wide variety of professors from different disciplines who normally don't get together to discuss the value of teaching law to undergraduates," said Umphrey.
Preparations for the event began last year with the help of the LJST academic coordinator, Linda Spalluzzi.
Support for the conference came from the College's office of the dean of the faculty and the department of LJST, as well as from the University of Delaware, Oberlin College and Whitman College.
The LJST department holds a lecture series each year. Next year's series, "The Limits of Law," will bring six scholars to Amherst over the course of the year. The department will also host a conference next April entitled "Law's Moving Image."