Visual legal commentary
pp. 671-696
in: Anne Wagner, Richard K. Sherwin (eds), Law, culture and visual studies, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
Much contemporary legal commentary contains nontextual information—everything from graphs and cartoons to geometric diagrams of the relations among legal concepts. No comprehensive account of this practice exists, so that most of those participating in it today are unaware of the rich tradition from which it derives. This chapter explores that tradition, explaining the relations between visual legal commentary and a broader tradition of visual commentary, as well as the important relations between visual legal commentary and the historical consolidation of legal expertise.