Roger Cotterrell, Anniversary Professor of Legal Theory at Queen Mary University of London, has been awarded the Dennis Leslie Mahoney Prize in Legal Theory 2021.
The prize is awarded every 5 years by the Julius Stone Institute for Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney. The value of the award is AU$50,000.
Professor Cotterrell was awarded the prize for his book “Sociological Jurisprudence: Juristic Thought and Social Inquiry” and a portfolio of publications. In the Jury’s view, Professor Cotterrell’s book and his publications best advanced Professor Julius Stone’s sociological and justice-oriented approach to jurisprudence.
The prize is a magnificent achievement and offers official recognition of Professor Cotterrell’s life-long dedication to enabling dialogue between analytical, normative, doctrinal, critical, and empirical approaches to law.
Professor Cotterrell’s achievement builds on the School of Law’s long-standing tradition of sociological and justice-oriented jurisprudence. Since 2015, the School has hosted the Annual Cotterrell Lectures in Sociological Jurisprudence. Within the series, ‘sociological jurisprudence’ is understood broadly to encompass any theoretical aspect of socio-legal studies, any serious effort to relate jurisprudence and legal theory to changing social and historical conditions, or any topic linking law and social theory.