Law Commons^™

Between Truth And Provocation: Reclaiming Reason In American Legal Scholarship, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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Truth has regained a strong voice in American legal scholarship. Like a groggy patient slowly emerging from a traumatic operation, legal theory is being coaxed back to consciousness by Dan Farber and Suzanna Sherry. They are fighting the debilitating illness of radical multiculturalism and its attendant relativism; they proclaim that the cure can be found in the power of truth, the force or reason, and the integrity of the word. Unfortunately, the patient is unlikely to recover while in the care of Farber and Sherry, even though their operation must be judged a success on its own terms. By equating …

Continuing Classroom Conversation Beyond The Four Whys, Jeffrey W. Stempel, Bailey Kuklin

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LAW school classes regularly prove Santayana's aphorism. Although nearly every law teacher desires to keep discussion focused and forward-moving, there are more than a few moments of thundering silence experienced in the classroom. Most of us adjust to this inevitability by positing some pedagogical virtue to still air and contenting ourselves with the knowledge that conversation-stopping “whys?” are usually delivered by us as teachers rather than the students. Perhaps we are underappreciative of the value discomfitting silence has, but we generally prefer that the conversation continue, that we miss the opportunity to feel simultaneously smug and uncomfortable, and that students …

A More Complete Look At Complexity, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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The ability of courts to successfully resolve complex cases has been a matter of contentious debate, not only for the last quarter-century, but for most of the twentieth century. This debate has been part of the legal landscape at least since Judge Jerome Frank's polemic book from which this Symposium derives its title, and probably since Roscoe Pound's famous address to the American Bar Association. During the 1980s and 1990s in particular, the battlelines of the pro-and anti-court debate have been brightly drawn. Some commentators, most reliably successful plaintiffs' counsel and politically liberal academics, defend the judicial track record in …

Symbiotic Legal Theory And Legal Practice: Advocating A Common Sense Jurisprudence Of Law And Practical Applications, Jean R. Sternlight

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Lawyers and legal academics are waging a fierce war over the soul of legal education in the United States. The various battles in this war include disputes over the proper emphasis on teaching versus scholarship; the need for clinical, practical, or transaction-oriented education versus the need for theoretical education; and the need for traditional doctrinal work versus the need for interdisciplinary or more liberal arts-oriented education within law schools. The war also plays itself out in discussions over law school hiring and tenure decisions.

In this Article I urge that practice and even the most abstract theory are complementary, not …

The New Legal Hermeneutics, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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Gregory Leyh has edited a volume of essays commissioned “to examine the intersections between contemporary legal theory and the foundations of interpretation” as explored in contemporary hermeneutics. The essays are diverse and multidisciplinary, but each sheds light on perplexing issues of legal interpretation that have exhausted commentators in recent years. The contributors share a broad agreement that we must reject the picture of law as an autonomous, insulated discourse and instead must regard legal discourse as one of many interrelated practices rooted in our character as interpretive beings.

Each contributor addressees the central concerns defined by the leading philosopher of …

Is The Rule Of Law Possible In A Postmodern World?, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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The Rule of Law is the core of our political and legal ideology, but the Rule of Law increasingly is attacked as an unattainable goal. Postmodern theorists challenge whether it makes sense to believe that rules can be formulated for general application and then later neutrally applied by decision makers. Postmodern theorists reject the Enlightenment world view and its political corollary, classical liberalism. The author agrees with the spirit of the postmodern critique, but argues that we can understand the Rule of Law in a manner consonant with postmodern thought. Drawing on the Continental tradition of hermeneutics, or the philosophy …

Rethinking The Rule Of Law: A Demonstration That The Obvious Is Plausible, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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In this Article, I defend the Rule of Law from its detractors in the academy by uncovering and criticizing the unsound presuppositions driving their critiques. I acknowledge that these critiques raise two different problems for those who defend the plausibility of the Rule of Law: The problem of ensuring legal innovation and the problem of supplying effective constraint. In response to these problems, I locate our faith in the Rule of Law in the hermeneutical practice in which we are engaged as lawyers. Jurisprudential characterizations of the problems of constraint and innovation are misguided reactions to the narrow Enlightenment conception …

Postmodern Constitutionalism As Materialism, Francis J. Mootz Iii

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Professor J.M. Balkin’s recent essay in Michigan Law Review assesses the implications that postmodernism holds for constitutional law. Although I agree with Balkin about many of the specific issues that he believes must be addressed in a postmodern constitutionalism, I find that his manner of talking about postmodernism is unproductive in an important way. Balkin quite correctly argues that a postmodern constitutionalism should not mimic the fragmented and superficial culture of postmodernity, nor should it devolve simply to normative claims that postmodernity is desirable and should be embraced or adopted within the law. However, Balin’s thesis that a postmodern constitutionalism …

Reactions To Opression: Jurisgenesis In The Jurispathic State, John Valery White

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This Note offers a model for analyzing the political and legal traditions of oppressed communities and developing a jurisprudence that accurately reflects the communities' views. Under this model, each of these diverse views can be understood from one of four perspectives: parochialism, fatalism, neo-liberalism, and individualism. These four perspectives are defined by an oppressed community's members' aspirations for liberation. Different ideals of justice and liberation underlie each perspective. Though touching on some of the communities' sentiments, the examinations of scholars of color have thus far been largely piecemeal, overemphasizing certain views, unwittingly combining divergent views, or marginalizing and dismissing unpopular …

Legality And Empathy, Lynne Henderson

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No abstract provided.

The Practice Of Extradition From Antiquity To Modern France And The United States: A Brief History, Christopher L. Blakesley

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In order to understand the perceptions of extradition’s function and purpose in modern France and the United States, it is important to consider the evolution of thought regarding extradition. This article will focus on the history of extradition law as it has influenced contemporary law in the United States and France. The purpose of the article is to provide insight into the development of the “modern” extradition. Although the process has not always been executed by use of a treaty agreement, treaty authorized extraditions have existed since antiquity. Moreover, a treaty authorized extradition for common crimes, as opposed to political …