A Stranger's Journey through the Common Law

In this presentation, based on his 2018 inaugural lecture at the University of Melbourne, the author reflects on his experience of coming to the common law – and then spending almost two decades journeying through it – as someone whose formative years, including civilian legal education, reflected a profoundly different worldview and set of epistemological commitments. From this unusual perspective he has derived a perhaps distinctive take on what constitutes some of the admirable, and also less admirable, features of the common law as an intellectual tradition.

Eric Descheemaeker is Professor of Law at Melbourne Law School. He received his legal education at the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford. Before moving to Australia in 2017, he taught in England (Oxford, Bristol) and Scotland (Edinburgh). His main research interests are tort and unjust enrichment.

A sandwich lunch will be available from 12.30. The meeting will begin at 1pm.