ABSTRACT
The methodological message of H L A Hart’s The Concept of Law (1961) was simple: to fully appreciate the role of law in social life one should start with the mundane and the ordinary. This work, called by the author ‘an essay in descriptive sociology’, would never find its way onto any sociological course – whatever Hart does in this text it is not sociology as the discipline is taught in university departments bearing that name. Hart’s approach is rather the sociology of a barrister, the sociology of the trained advocate who believes that no brief is beyond him or her.
