Courses Offered:

Comparative Law
Jurisprudence
Law in the Gospels
Western Legal Tradition

Professional Biographical Information:

Alan Watson, Distinguished Research Professor and Ernest P. Rogers Chair at the University of Georgia School of Law, is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on Roman law, comparative law, legal history, and law and religion.

A prolific scholar and master of more than a dozen languages, Watson has nearly 150 books and articles to his credit, and his books have been translated into countless dialects. Selected scholarship includes the revolutionary books Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law (1974) and Society and Legal Change (1977) as well as The Evolution of Western Private Law (2000), Jesus and the Jews: The Pharisaic Tradition in John (1995), Ancient Law and Modern Understanding: At the Edges (1998), Sources of Law, Legal Change, and Ambiguity (2d ed., 1998), Legal History and a Common Law for Europe (2001), Authority of Law; and Law (2003) and The Shame of American Legal Education (2005). Recent articles include "Law Out of Context" in The Edinburgh Law Review (2000) and "Fox Hunting, Pheasant Shooting and Comparative Law" in the American Journal of Comparative Law (2000). Watson was honored by his international colleagues in 2000-01 when two collections of essays were presented
in his honor: an American volume, Lex et Romanitas: Essays for Alan Watson, and the European volume, Ancient Law, Comparative Law & Legal History.

Watson regularly serves as a distinguished lecturer at leading universities in the United States and such countries as Italy, Holland, Germany, France, Poland, South Africa, Israel and Yugoslavia. He has attended several sessions regarding the development of a common law for the EU, including one in Maastricht in 2000, and, at the request of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), served as a member of the two-person U.S. team helping to revise the draft civil code for the new Republic of Armenia.

Watson holds eight degrees, including a master's and law degree from the University of Glasgow; the bachelor's, master's, doctor of philosophy and doctor of civil law degrees from Oxford University; a doctor of laws degree from the University of Edinburgh; and a doctor of laws degrees honoris causa from the University of Glasgow. In 1997, he was elected Visiting Professor of Private Law at the University of Edinburgh, the highest honorary award bestowed by the Scottish faculty.

Watson is an honorary member of the Speculative Society and serves as North American secretary of the Stair Society. He is an editorial board member for the Juridical Review, Journal of Legal History, the Journal of Comparative Law, the Belgrade Law Journal, IURA, the European Lawyer Journal and the American Journal of Legal History.

Additional Information:
The Alan Watson Foundation Prize