William Lawrence Twining, a celebrated British legal scholar and Quain Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at University College London, passed away on October 9, 2025. Born on September 22, 1934, Twining was a towering figure in jurisprudence and a leading member of the Law in Context movement. While his academic influence was global, he maintained a particularly deep and transformative relationship with the University of Miami School of Law for more than three decades.
His significant involvement in Miami began in 1972 when Soia Mentschikoff, Karl Llewellyn's widow, became Dean of the Law School. She recruited Twining, among other Chicago graduates, to assist in reshaping the institution along "Llewellynesque lines."
For over thirty years, he served as a regular visitor, an arrangement he noted gave him the invaluable opportunity to develop his ideas. During his time at Miami Law, he created a seminar titled "Globalization and Law" and collaborated with Terence J. Anderson, Professor of Law Emeritus, in co-teaching the course "Analysis of Evidence." Many School of Law students benefited from the course, and the important book developed from this course applied the logic of proof to everyday lawyering jobs.
“I was privileged to know and work with William Twining for 30+ years. Our work together focused on evidential reasoning, but I was also able to observe the extraordinary breadth and quality of his other work. He was truly a man for all seasons. His death is cause for sorrow, but his work will live on and influence scholars around the world for many years to come,” said Anderson, with whom he co-authored two editions of Analysis of Evidence with Twining.
Dean Emerita Patricia D. White remembered Twining as a "remarkable man and good friend to the law school." His generosity is memorialized by the bust of Karl Llewellyn that he gifted, which stands in the faculty lounge.
The work Twining developed at Miami was integral to his broader intellectual project. His seminar on globalization directly fed into his foundational writings on globalization and legal theory. A central theme of his scholarship was challenging the core working assumptions of Western legal traditions by adopting a global perspective. He argued that many so-called “global” processes are in fact sub-global, linked to empires, diasporas, and specific legal traditions. He advocated for a more cosmopolitan discipline of law, one capable of engaging with the construction of just supra-national institutions to address global issues like radical poverty and diverse beliefs.
“William had a profound impact on the law school and many of our colleagues,” said Andres Sawicki, professor and director of the Business of Innovation, Law, & Technology Concentration.
Before his long tenure at University College London, Twining taught for seven years in Sudan and Tanzania, experiences that fostered a lifelong interest in Eastern Africa and the Commonwealth. He also held chairs in Belfast and Warwick. He was also a long-standing Senior Associate at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, where he was cherished for offering "wisdom, support, and guidance to several generations of researchers."
His exceptional contributions were recognized with the American Association of Law School’s John Henry Wigmore Award for Lifetime Achievement in Elucidating the Law of Evidence and the process of Proof and fellowships at the British Academy and the Academy for Social Sciences. He was also a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“His graciousness was an inspiration, and he will be greatly missed by the international academic community he so profoundly shaped,” said Robert E. Rosen, professor of law.
