Roger B. M. Cotterrell is the Anniversary Professor of Legal Theory at

Queen Mary University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

and was made a

fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # ...

in 2005. Previously he was the Acting Head of the Department of Law (1989–90), Head of the Department of Law (1990-1), Professor of Legal Theory (1990–2005) and the Dean of the Faculty of Laws (1993-6) at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.

Background

Roger Cotterrell studied law at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

as an undergraduate and postgraduate and began his teaching career at the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_lab ...

as a lecturer in law in 1969. After returning to London in 1973, he studied

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

and

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

Birkbeck College , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

(1975-8) while teaching law full-time at Queen Mary College. Thereafter he was one of the small group of law and sociology academics in Britain who first specialised in the new field of

sociology of law The sociology of law (legal sociology, or law and society) is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, ...

from the 1970s. His leading book on the subject has been translated into several languages. From the late 1990s he developed a "law and community" approach to socio-legal theory, attempting to replace sociology of law's traditional "

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

and

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...

" approach, and stressing links with

comparative law Comparative law is the study of differences and similarities between the law (legal systems) of different countries. More specifically, it involves the study of the different legal "systems" (or "families") in existence in the world, including the ...

and the study of law's embeddedness in culture. The approach has influenced research in such diverse fields as communal property rights, sentencing policy, and foreign investment law. He has also sought to re-define relations between jurisprudence and sociology, reformulating the idea of a sociological jurisprudence, and has argued that the role of jurists must be value-oriented rather than merely technical. His writings insist on clearly distinguishing jurisprudence (as the professional theoretical and practical knowledge of jurists) from the currently dominant forms of Anglophone legal philosophy. In 2013 he was awarded the Socio-Legal Studies Association prize for "contributions to the socio-legal community" and in 2014 was made a

fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences The Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) is an award granted by the Academy of Social Sciences to leading academics, policy-makers, and practitioners of the social sciences. Fellows were previously known as Academicians and used the ...

. In 2022 he was awarded the Dennis Leslie Mahoney Prize in Legal Theory. He has also broadcast, published and given public talks on

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

. He wrote profiles of musicians and reviewed music for many magazines from the late 1960s until the 1990s, and has edited and contributed to books on jazz. From 1975 to 1992 he wrote regularly for the Warsaw-based magazine ''Jazz Forum'', published internationally in English, German and Polish editions.''Jazz Forum''.
/ref> His son is the artist David Cotterrel

Main publications

;Books: *''The Sociology of Law: An Introduction''. London: Butterworths /

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

(2nd edn, 1992) *''Law, Democracy and Social Justice''. (co-edited with Brian Bercusson) Oxford: Blackwell (1988) *''The Politics of Jurisprudence: A Critical Introduction to Legal Philosophy''. Oxford:

(2nd edn, 2003) *''Law and Society''. (edited) Abingdon:

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

(1994) *''Law's Community: Legal Ideas in Sociological Perspective''. Oxford:

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

(1995) *''Emile Durkheim: Law in a Moral Domain''. Stanford:

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...

/ Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh University Press is a scholarly publisher of academic books and journals, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. History Edinburgh University Press was founded in the 1940s and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh ...

(1999) *''Sociological Perspectives on Law''. (edited) Abingdon:

, 2 vols (2001) *''Bass Lines - A Life in Jazz''. (with

Coleridge Goode George Coleridge Emerson Goode (29 November 1914 – 2 October 2015) was a British Jamaican-born jazz bassist best known for his long collaboration with alto saxophonist Joe Harriott. Goode was a member of Harriott's innovatory jazz quintet thro ...

) London: Northway (2002) *''Law in Social Theory''. (edited) Abingdon:

(2006) *''Law, Culture and Society: Legal Ideas in the Mirror of Social Theory''. Abingdon:

(2006) *''Living Law: Studies in Legal and Social Theory''. Abingdon:

(2008) *''Emile Durkheim: Justice, Morality and Politics''. (edited) Abingdon:

(2010) *''Authority in Transnational Legal Theory''. (co-edited with Maksymilian Del Mar) Cheltenham:

Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...

(2016) *''Sociological Jurisprudence: Juristic Thought and Social Inquiry''. New York / London:

(2018)

Other sources

* Richard Nobles and David Schiff (eds), ''Law, Society and Community: Socio-Legal Essays in Honour of Roger Cotterrell''. Abingdon:

(2014)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotterrell, Roger Alumni of University College London Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London Academics of the University of Leicester Academics of Queen Mary University of London Fellows of the British Academy British legal scholars British music critics Living people Year of birth missing (living people)