The Critical Tradition in the Writing of American Legal History

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 137.52.76.In early 1914 John Henry Wigmore, dean of the Northwestern University Law School, was invited to join the American Academy of Jurisprudence, founded by a group of elite lawyers to reform the law by settling the "small" number of doctrinal issues left confused and uncertain by conflicting judicial opinions.' Wigmore responded with a long circular to the charter members attacking the project. In part, Wigmore opposed the Academy because he wanted to reserve "the scientific statement of the law" for that "specialist in legal

Understanding Legal Realism

“…A dramatic expression of the ongoing change can be found in John Wigmore's vigorous opposition in 1914 to a then-current proposal by the American Academy of Jurisprudence to compile a statement of legal doctrine. 353 Daniel Ernst summarized a letter Wigmore sent to the Academy's members that was highly critical of the project: [Vol. 87:731 VIII.…”

“The Duty to Act Fairly”: Ethics, Legal Anthropology, and Labor Justice in the Manual Workers Union of Botswana

“…Botswana's post-independence legal complexity is 12 Changes to the law and its jurisdiction can be experienced by ordinary people as threatening and confusing, as in the case of land law reforms introduced in Botswana with the creation of land boards (Werbner 1980). 13 On the relative autonomy of courts more generally, see Tomlins (2007) and Ernst (1993). Tomlins argues that the autonomy of courts is always "relational" to some other entity (e.g., "society").…”

“… 13 On the relative autonomy of courts more generally, see Tomlins (2007) and Ernst (1993). Tomlins argues that the autonomy of courts is always “relational” to some other entity (e.g., “society”).…”

Law and American Economic Development

“…The result reads so much like a Hegelian-type dialectic that Horwitz feels compelled to express the hope that he had "not presented the misleading message-regularly conveyed by students of jurisprudence in England and America-that the history of philosophy is the story of a gradual unfolding of better and better ideas that prevailed largely because they were correct" (142). 9 A strong argument can be made that "cognitive relativism" was for many legal realists simply a weapon for attacking their old-order adversaries that was abandoned after the New Deal constitutional revolution ushered in a new orthodoxy. He warns against exaggerating the importance of methodological issues for the legal realists and thereby downplaying their "sense of moral outrage" (6).…”