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Full-Text Articles in Law
Contemplating Masterpiece Cakeshop, Terri R. Day
Contemplating Masterpiece Cakeshop, Terri R. Day
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Law Of Interpretation, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs
The Law Of Interpretation, William Baude, Stephen E. Sachs
Faculty Scholarship
How should we interpret legal instruments? How do we identify the law they create? Current approaches largely fall into two broad camps. The standard picture of interpretation is focused on language, using various linguistic conventions to discover a document's meaning or a drafter's intent. Those who see language as less determinate take a more skeptical view, urging judges to make interpretive choices on policy grounds. Yet both approaches neglect the most important resource available: the already applicable rules of law.
Legal interpretation is neither a subfield of linguistics nor an exercise in policymaking. Rather, it is deeply shaped by preexisting …