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The Democratic Common Law, Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

This article explores the democratic features of common-law judicial law-making. It begins by examining the so-called “classical” account of the common law, associated with English jurists Edward Coke and Matthew Hale. These jurists describe the common law as a kind of “reasonable custom” that emerges out of a public process in which lawyers exchange reasons with the court about how to resolve a dispute. The article then turns to modern common-law adjudication, and, drawing on the work of Fred Schauer, Edward Levi, Martin Golding, and others, shows how public deliberation prominently features in the modern adjudicative process as well. The …