The Institute for Legal Studies was established by the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1985 under the leadership of David Trubek. It has continued under the direction of Marc Galanter, and most recently, Howard Erlanger. In establishing the Institute, the Law School sought to expand and institutionalize its longstanding "law in action" approach, which dates back to the early part of the twentieth century and remains vital to its mission. The Institute was created to foster the interdisciplinary study and teaching of law not only by providing support for its own faculty, but also by explicitly connecting to other departments on campus and by cultivating a network of scholars with similar interests worldwide.
The Institute acts as a catalyst and facilitator for scholarly work on sociolegal topics carried out by faculty and graduate students, and supports related studies in dual degree graduate programs and in the undergraduate Legal Studies Program. Over the years, it has promoted and assisted independent and collaborative research in a wide variety of substantive areas in sociolegal studies. Well known work done under the Institute's umbrella includes seminal work on the social context of contractual relationships, litigation and disputing, comparative institutional analysis, poverty law and administrative agencies, family law, feminist legal theory, the legal history of the family, the implementation of law in organizations, Critical Race Theory, the legal profession, and emerging issues in international law and globalization. The Institute currently serves as the base of operations for the Global Legal Studies Center, the Wisconsin Contracts Project, and the Legal History and Law and Humanities programs. It has collaborated with the American Bar Foundation through a number of joint projects and by housing the Review Section of Law & Social Inquiry. The Institute recently housed the Law & Society Review. Five scholars currently or formerly affiliated with the Institute have been elected president of the Law and Society Association.
The Institute counts among its affiliates many Law School faculty
and a number of the social science and humanities faculty at the
University of Wisconsin, as well as selected ILS Distinguished Scholars
at other universities. It is home to a changing group of scholars with
short and long-term affiliations, including graduate students, a funded
Law and Society Fellow, and visiting scholars from outside the U.S. Each
year the Institute hosts numerous presentations by current and visiting
faculty on a wide variety of topics, and a half-dozen symposia and
conferences, covering such topics as international law and
globalization, legal
issues in access to medicine in underdeveloped countries, the liberal
state and its mental health power, New Legal Realism, theology and law, and feminist legal theory. On a
biennial basis, the Institute hosts two signature events:
the Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History and the Midwest Law
and Society Retreat.