Rule of Law Commons^™

Using The Master’S Tool To Dismantle His House: Derrick Bell, Herbert Wechsler, And Critical Legal Process, William Rhee

Concordia Law Review

This Article retells the life stories of Derrick Bell, a founder of Critical Race Theory, and Herbert Wechsler, a founder of the Legal Process School, to suggest a synthesis of their often conflicting paradigms—Critical Legal Process. Critical Legal Process’s fundamental question is whether the Master’s tool, the so-called rule of law, can be considered—in the words of Wechsler’s most famous article—a genuine “neutral principle.” Can the Master’s favorite tool be repurposed to dismantle the very house it built? Can the same rule of law that was abused to build the racist Jim Crow system not only dismantle that explicitly racist …

Separation Of Powers Doctrine On The Modern Supreme Court And Four Doctrinal Approaches To Judicial Decision-Making, R. Randall Kelso

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Inevitability Of Practical Reason: Statutes, Formalism, And The Rule Of Law, Daniel A. Farber

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Symposium commemorates the publication of Karl Llewellyn's assault on the canons of statutory interpretation. This Article seeks to situate Llewellyn's view of statutory interpretation within the ongoing debate between advocates of practical reason and formalism.

Many critics of practical reason question its compatibility with the rule of law. If we cannot precisely describe the operation of practical reason, can we have any confidence in its ability to guide judicial decisions? Or, on the contrary, does formalism provide a greater degree of democratic accountability, certainty, stability, and predictability than practical reason? These questions are the primary concern of this Article. …