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Courthouse Iconography And Chayesian Judical Practice, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis emphasize in Representing Justice that the traditional iconography of courthouses is incongruent with the current practices of the institutions that inhabit them. The key elements of traditional iconography – the blindfolded, scale-balancing Justitia and the courtroom configured for the trial – connote adjudication. Yet, the fraction of judicial work that involves deciding cases on the merits or conducting trials has decreased dramatically. Most judicial work today is basically managerial.

We could reduce this incongruity, on the one hand, by reviving the practical adjudicatory focus of the past or, on the other, by revising the iconography …