Customer Reviews

The Interpretation Game

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Benson's book is more important than he lets on. He starts with a small kernel of a thesis which he gradually expands into a wide panorama that encompasses far more than law. It is a book, in the end, about the philosophy of law. But, again, it's not.

Benson talks about schools of legal thought in a way that makes the ideas easily understandable, accessible, and interesting to all readers, lawyers and nonlawyers, philosophers and practicians, the curious and the bored.

One would think such a work would be depressing. After all, Benson debunks the idea that judges decide cases based on unchanging legal precedent and principle. But it is not depressing. I found it enlightening and uplifting.

The book should certainly be required reading for all students interested in pursuing law. But more than just a good book for lawyers or lawyers-to-be, it is a book that provides background and history to the law. Schools should pick this book up for their civics or humanities classes.

The Interpretation GameAs a practicing trial lawyer for more than 40 years, this book really tells it like it is. The various courts do just that, play a game with the law. The author cites to one of the greats, Justice Cardoza's Palsgraph case to make his point. If Justices Cardoza and Holmes are guilty of playing the game, who isn't. Clearly the judges come up with the result desired, according to the values they treasure, at the time, and then play the interpretation game to justify the result. In my recent Supreme Court cases, the game has been played so boldly that it is a joke. I anm sorry that I did not read and head this book many years before.