Professor Sharon Cowan hosts ‘Essays in Honour of Michael Adler’ book launch
Mon 16 December 2024

On Tuesday 10 October, Professors Sharon Cowan and Simon Halliday (University of Strathclyde) gathered together friends and colleagues of Emeritus Professor Michael Adler, to celebrate the launch of their edited collection, ‘Socio-Legal Generation: A collection of Essays in Honour of Michael Adler’.
Published by Palgrave McMillian in October 2024, the book brings together an international group of scholars from across Europe, Australia and the USA. The essays build on themes Professor Mike Adler explored across five decades of pioneering socio-legal scholarship, and that continue to resonate in contemporary debates about the relationship between justice, fairness, and the modern administrative state. Specifically, the book re-examines core socio-legal issues including: the relationship between official discretion and the rule of law; the justice of internal administrative processes; the importance of a ‘bottom up’ perspective on justice; power and accountability in the prison sector; access to justice for social welfare claimants; and the promise of viewing the law through the lens of social science.
Collaborators, friends and colleagues from across the university who attended the event, also spoke about their experience of working and teaching with Mike, and in particular his passionate intellectual curiosity, and his warmth and generosity.
Professor Cowan said: “We were thrilled to be able to bring together this collection of essays by contributors who have all been influenced by Mike’s eclectic and inspirational work, from across the decades, and from many different areas of socio-legal scholarship. We are grateful to the Law School for enabling us to host this event to celebrate the book’s publication.”