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Postures Of Judging: An Exploration Of Judicial Decisionmaking, Daniel J. Solove

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article pits Ronald Dworkin against Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The article critiques Ronald Dworkin's answer to the question of fit: how judges reconcile general legal rules with particular situations. Dworkin's heavy focus on legal principles under-emphasizes the importance of facts in judicial decisionmaking. Exploring how judges approach the question of fit from a more literary perspective, the article examines the posture of a judge - a judge's physical and temporal position in relation to the cases she adjudicates, a position which affects the level of generality with which a judge perceives the facts of a case and directly influences a judge's …