Traditionally law has been viewed as a system of rules to be analysed and applied with mechanical logic. But instead of thinking of law as a “closed” system that can only be understood through traditional legal research and analysis, it can be conceptualised as an “open” system in which insights, approaches, and influences from other disciplines can be brought to bear. Beyond Doctrine: Alternative and Critical Approaches to Law is the first comprehensive Australian resource for approaching law as something more than a system of rules.

This edited collection includes contributions from an impressive array of Australian scholars, each of whom specialises in thinking about law from a different perspective. Whether viewing law as a tool to legitimise oppression (Marxism), as a mechanism to provide the most efficient outcomes (law and economics), as an artefact of particular historical events and forces (legal history), as a method to impose and undo gender hierarchies (Queer and feminist legal theory), as the means to explain – and perhaps ameliorate – the effects of the “Age of Discovery” (decolonialisation studies), and much more, these theories ask us to think more deeply about law and what it means.

Beyond Doctrine provides an authoritative and thoughtful introduction to different legal methodologies and situates those methodologies in an Australian context. It will appeal to students of legal methodology courses and legal scholars.