Law Commons^™

Institutions And Linguistic Conventions: The Pragmatism Of Lieber's Legal Hermeneutics, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

This article presents Francis Lieber’s 1839 treatise “Legal and Political Hermeneutics” as a surprisingly modern and pragmatic account of interpretation. It first explicates the two most important influences on Liber’s thought, the romantic philology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the institutional positivism of Whig jurists Story and Kent. It shows that both of these sources frankly acknowledged that interpretation is an institutional practice, organized by the evolving aims and customs of the institutions within which it took place. Both tended to view the writing and reading of texts as the deployment of linguistic conventions. Both movements thereby viewed meaning for all …

Closing Argument, James H. Seckinger

Journal Articles

To put closing argument in perspective, lawsuits are won or lost on the evidence and the law, not on the advocate's analytical and oratory skill. As pointed out by Broun and Seckinger: “This is not intended to minimize the importance of the closing argument. It is merely to relegate it to its proper position, which is a summation of the evidence that has preceded it and a relation of that evidence to the issues in the case.”

An effective closing is an argument, not a summation. An effective closing argument should attack the serious problems in a case and put …

An Overview Of The Scholarship In Law And Religion Of Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

I first met John Noonan at a Law Review dinner when I was a year or so out of law school and he was a third year student. Chance placed us at the same table, and the conversation-naturally-proved to be more interesting than the speeches.

I am honored, indeed, blessed, to have been exposed to that witness for so many decades, and deeply grateful for the opportunity to come here on this occasion and bear my own witness in return.