Future University of Otago law students can look forward to jurisprudence classes, now the faculty has established a new chair in the discipline.
Jurisprudence - the philosophy of the law - is a compulsory subject in an Otago law degree, even though the New Zealand Council of Legal Education no longer considers its study to be mandatory.
Establishing a chair would ensure Otago law graduates had a strong philosophical understanding of the role of law in a just and civil society, university chancellor Royden Somerville said.
The chair will be named after Jeremy Waldron, an Otago graduate who has taught at Oxford, Berkeley, Princeton and Columbia.
''Prof Waldron is a world-renowned legal scholar, and still regularly visits Otago to speak to students and staff,'' Dean of Law Jessica Palmer said.
The chair is the initiative of one of Prof Waldron's teachers, former Otago law lecturer Noel Carroll, supported by a one-time classmate, former Dean of Law Mark Henaghan.
An international search for a scholar to take the chair, will be made in the latter half of the year.
