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Clarifying The Normative Dimension Of Legal Realism: The Example Of Holmes's The Path Of The Law, Edmund Ursin Jun 2012

Clarifying The Normative Dimension Of Legal Realism: The Example Of Holmes's The Path Of The Law, Edmund Ursin

San Diego Law Review

In a recently published article, I examined the Legal Realism found in Leon Green's and Karl Llewellyn's tort scholarship. Brian Leiter had previously presented an insightful "philosophical reconstruction" of Legal Realism. In articulating what he sees as the descriptive and normative aspects of Legal Realism, Leiter drew most of his examples from the field of commercial law, which was the main focus of Llewellyn's scholarship. In this context he wrote that most Legal Realists made a descriptive claim about judicial decisions or, more specifically, decisions of appellate courts. Stated in its most succinct form, this descriptive claim was that judicial …


The Missing Normative Dimension In Brian Leiter's "Reconstructed" Legal Realism, Edmund Ursin Feb 2012

The Missing Normative Dimension In Brian Leiter's "Reconstructed" Legal Realism, Edmund Ursin

San Diego Law Review

Legal Realism has undergone a revitalization in academia. In a series of articles over the past decade and a half, and in a 2007 book, Brian Leiter has offered a "philosophical reconstruction" of Legal Realism... In the forthcoming Article, I will seek to clarify further the normative dimension of Legal Realism. I will suggest that it is a mistake to divide Legal Realists into quietist camps. This is because these terms refer to two distinct phenomena. Nonquetism in a view of the lawmaking role: judges are legislators-they make law and policy plays a role in their lawmaking. Quietism reflects a …