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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Zealous Advocacy Of Justice In A Less Than Ideal Legal World, Robin West
The Zealous Advocacy Of Justice In A Less Than Ideal Legal World, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In The Practice of Justice, William Simon addresses a widely recognized dilemma -- the moral degradation of the legal profession that seems to be the unpleasant by-product of an adversarial system of resolving disputes -- with a bold claim: Lawyers involved in either the representation of private rights or the public interest should be zealous advocates of justice, rather than their clients' interests. If lawyers were to do what this reorientation of their basic identity would dictate -- that is, if lawyers were to zealously pursue justice according to law, rather than zealously pursue through all marginally lawful means whatever …
Liberalism And Abortion, Robin West
Liberalism And Abortion, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
First in a groundbreaking book, Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent, published in 1996, then in various public fora, from academic conference panels to Christian radio call-in shows, and now in a major law review article entitled My Body, My Consent: Securing the Constitutional Right to Abortion Funding, Eileen McDonagh has sought to redefine drastically our understanding of the still deeply contested right to an abortion, and hence, of the nature of the constitutional protections which in her view this embattled right deserves. Her argument is complicated and subtle, but its basic thrust can be readily …
Law And Fancy, Robin West
Law And Fancy, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Martha Nussbaum's graceful book Poetic Justice is an elegant brief for the importance of our capacity for imaginative "fancy" to our moral and legal lives. Imaginative fancy, Nussbaum argues, allows us to know the internal substance and quality of the lives of others. It allows us to come to appreciate, to understand, to share, and ultimately to resist others' suffering. It is, in short, the means by which we come to care about the fate and happiness of others. It is a part, but not the whole, of our capacity to transcend a narcissistic and infantile egoism. It is therefore …
Constitutional Fictions And Meritocratic Success Stories, Robin West
Constitutional Fictions And Meritocratic Success Stories, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
L.H. LaRue demonstrates in his book, Constitutional Law as Fiction, that, at least in the realm of constitutional law, there is no simple correspondence between fiction and falsehood, or fact and truth. Partial or fictive accounts of our constitutional history, even when they are riddled with inaccuracies, may state deep truths about our world, and accurate recitations of historical events may be either intentionally or unintentionally misleading in the extreme. According to LaRue, the Supreme Court engages in a form of storytelling or myth-making that goes beyond the inevitably partial narratives of fact and precedent. The Supreme Court also tells …
The Constitution Of Reasons, Robin West
The Constitution Of Reasons, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Cass Sunstein's book, The Partial Constitution, brings together a number of his constitutional law essays from the last ten years. During that time, Sunstein has argued, powerfully, for the unconstitutionality of regulatory constraints on access to abortion; for the constitutionality of and the need for regulation of violent pornography; for the constitutionality of limits on both campaign spending and congressional control over public broadcasting; for the deep consistency, conventional wisdom to the contrary notwithstanding, of the Court's repudiation of Lochner in 1937 with its 1974 decision in Roe v. Wade; for the view that we should accord far less deference …
Murdering The Spirit: Racism, Rights, And Commerce, Robin West
Murdering The Spirit: Racism, Rights, And Commerce, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Patricia Williams' The Alchemy of Race and Rights: The Diary of a Law Professor, is an eloquent, profoundly original, and often brilliant collection of interdisciplinary essays and stories concerning the impact of racism and poverty on the human spirit; the historic and continuing role of law and legal institutions in defining, facilitating, and perpetuating those harms; and the possibilities and dangers imminent in the attempt to use law to effect a remedy for them. This is a book that we should celebrate: it reminds us that books are occasionally very, very important, that reading can be transformative, and that writing …