The Dean of Arts & Letters and the Department of Sociology present: James L. Nolan Jr.

The Cultural Conditions of Legal Borrowing:  Tocqueville's Penitentiaries and Contemporary Problem Solving Courts

James L. Nolan, Jr. is a Professor of Sociology at Williams College and is currently a visiting fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. This talk will examine the concept of legal borrowing and consider two cases. First, Nolan will discuss Tocqueville and Beaumont’s work on penitentiaries and their reflections on the potential transferability of American prisons to France, and second, his own work on the transplantation of American-styled problem-solving courts to five other common law countries. In both cases, Nolan will focus on the cultural concomitants to the law that influence the borrowing process.