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  • Le contexte social du droit dans le Québec contemporain : l’intelligence culturelle dans la pratique des juristes by Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens and Diane Labrèche
  • Colleen Sheppard
Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens et Diane Labrèche. Le contexte social du droit dans le Québec contemporain: l’intelligence culturelle dans la pratique des juristes. Cowansville, Québec: Éditions Yvon Blais, 2009. 299 p.

This important book advocates a social context approach to law that is particularly attentive to the concerns and realities of historically disadvantaged groups and diverse sociocultural communities. The ideas of the book are situated within an increasingly diverse contemporary Quebec. Over the past fifty years, Quebec has been transformed from a society where the major divisions were religious (Catholic versus Protestant) and linguistic (French and English), to a much more heterogeneous and culturally pluralistic society.1 The effects of the Quiet Revolution in nurturing the empowerment of social movements (including the women’s movement, gay and lesbian rights, and the disability rights movements) have also brought new issues of diversity to the public domain. Though available only in French and explicitly directed at jurists in Quebec, the book addresses themes that are relevant to the practice of law in many jurisdictions and is deserving of a wide readership.2

What is perhaps most striking about this book is the commitment of Jean-François Gauldreault-DesBiens and Diane Labrèche to bridging legal theory and practice. Complex and highly theoretical themes are carefully linked to the concrete exigencies of the practice of law. The theoretical ideas and insights draw on diverse and interdisciplinary scholarship. These ideas are then connected to equality principles and illustrated using a number of actual cases and judicial decisions. In a profession that tends to distinguish between theory and practice, this book provides a powerful rebuttal to the coherence of that dichotomy. Both authors are full-time law professors with a history of participating in continuing educational initiatives for lawyers and judges on the significance of social context, cultural diversity, and equality in law. Their experience working with the National Judicial Council in its Social Context Initiative for judges and with the Quebec Bar Association in its educational program for future lawyers prompted their engagement with a key idea at the heart of the book—the importance of advancing equality and access to justice through a humanized practice of law.3

The book begins with a brief discussion of the importance of understanding the social context of law and its integral connection to the ethical and equitable practice of law in modern and socially diverse societies. Chapter one presents the major theoretical themes that sustain the authors’ commitment to promoting the social context of law. The need to enhance attentiveness to social context by confronting and resisting the weight of pedagogies and analytical traditions that [End Page 101] privilege legal positivism is examined in chapter two, followed by an analysis in chapter three of how the legal principle of equality provides a framework for both expanding and setting limits on the social context of law. Chapter four then connects the theoretical ideas back to the concrete challenges lawyers face in representing clients whose backgrounds and life circumstances are very different from their own, and in seeking to increase diversity within law firms. To further illustrate the relevance of attentiveness to social context in law, the book includes an appendix with five fascinating testimonials from individuals engaged in applying a social context methodology to their professional work in the legal system.

Two of the central concepts developed in the book include the “social context of law” and “cultural intelligence.” Social context is defined to include: myriad social facts and practices, implicit and explicit ideological presuppositions, “extra-legal” norms, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions.4 Factors such as race, religion, physical and intellectual capacities, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status are also enumerated as important dimensions of social context. Cultural intelligence is defined with reference to the work of David Thomas and Kerr Inkson, who write:

Cultural intelligence means being skilled and flexible about understanding a culture, learning more about it from your ongoing interaction with it, and gradually reshaping...

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