Law Commons^™

The Concept Of Law And The New Public Law Scholarship, Edward L. Rubin

Michigan Law Review

This article is an attempt to identify the nature of an emerging field of legal scholarship known as "New Public Law." "New," of course, is a dangerous term. Our society's image of itself as forward looking and its tendency to market itself to itself through claims of novelty has spawned a range of phrases from the New Deal to the New Criticism to various new, improved laundry detergents. One does not hear very many positive comments about the "old" these days. The argument that old ways of doing things are better has become an emblem of mistaken thought, and the …

The New Public Law Movement: Moderation As A Postmodern Cultural Form, William N. Eskridge Jr., Gary Peller

Michigan Law Review

The past twenty years have witnessed an explosion of public law scholarship, as legal scholars reconceptualized themes of administrative law, legislation, and constitutional law; created almost from scratch whole new areas of public law scholarship, including discrimination, environmental, and consumer protection theory; and enlivened discourse with concepts drawn from microeconomics, public choice theory, civic republicanism, practical philosophy, and hermeneutics. This intellectually intense activity has suggested the possibility that public law discourse has entered a "critical stage" and stimulated the Michigan Law Review to hold a conference in October 1990 on whether there is something that might be called "New Public …

Structure, Relationship, Ideology, Or, How Would We Know A "New Public Law" If We Saw It?, Peter M. Shane

Michigan Law Review

Academic writings and judicial opinions are the research materials most accessible to legal academics. It is thus unsurprising that, when asked to discuss "New Public Law," professors of administrative law, constitutional law, and legislation focus chiefly on emerging scholarship and judicial output. This tendency illustrates the general and quite understandable phenomenon that people, including law professors, do most whatever they can do most readily.

Nevertheless, however elegantly and provocatively we analyze each other's work and the labor of judges, discerning whether a new public law exists ought to involve a broader inquiry. In this essay I explore the complexity of …