Law and Legacy in Medical Jurisprudence

Introduction and investigation of the concept – and utility – of legacy in the field of medical jurisprudence.

This book investigates the importance of legacy in the field of medical law. It demonstrates that legacies of the past can provide valuable lessons in shaping the law and regulation of the future. It also reveals that legacy can produce both benefits and burdens in this context.Graeme Laurie stepped down from the Chair in Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. This edited collection pays tribute to his extraordinary contributions to the field. Graeme often spoke about the importance of 'legacy' in academic work and forged a remarkable intellectual legacy of his own, notably through his work on genetic privacy, human tissue and information governance, and the regulatory salience of the concept of liminality. The essays in this volume animate the concept of legacy to analyse the study and practice of medical jurisprudence. In this light, legacy reveals characteristics of both benefit and burden, as both an encumbrance to and facilitator of the development of law, policy and regulation. The contributions reconcile the ideas of legacy and responsiveness and show that both dimensions are critical to achieve and sustain the health of medical jurisprudence itself as a dynamic, interdisciplinary and policy-engaged field of thinking.