Catalytic agents? Lon Fuller, James Milner, and the lawyer as social architect, 1950–69

Abstract

In the 1949–50 academic year, James Milner studied with Lon Fuller at Harvard Law School. There, he was influenced by Fuller’s belief that law schools should aim to produce ‘social architects,’ graduates capable of solving individual and societal problems by wielding a variety of tools derived from diverse legal processes. In the years following his time at Harvard, as a professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law from 1950 to 1969, Milner sought to develop and implement the social architect ideal, through his scholarship, teaching, and casebook writing in contract law and land planning, his presidency of the Association of Canadian Law Teachers, and through curricular initiatives within the faculty. Despite Milner’s efforts, his attempts to bring Fuller’s social architect ideas never flourished at the University of Toronto. This article details Milner’s attempts, illuminating him as a key intellectual figure at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and reflects on the factors of historical contingency that led to the failure of these ideas to take hold.