Jurismania: The Madness of American Law (Studies of the German Historical Institute, London) [Paperback]

Paul F. Campos (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195130839 | ISBN-13: 978-0195130836 | Publication Date: July 15, 1999

In Jurismania, Paul Campos asserts that our legal system is beginning to exhibit symptoms of serious mental illness. Trials and appeals that stretch out for years and cost millions, 100 page appellate court opinions, 1,000 page statutes before which even lawyers tremble with fear, and a public that grows more litigious every day all testify to a judicial overkill that borders on obsessive-compulsive disorder. Campos locates the source of such madness, paradoxically, in our worship of reason and the resulting belief that all problems are amenable to legal solutions. In insightful discussions of a wide range of cases, from NCAA regulations of student-athletes to the Simpson trial, from our most intractable social disputes over abortion and physician-assisted suicide to the war on drugs and the increasingly fastidious attempts to regulate behavior in public spaces, Campos shows that the mania for more law exacerbates the very problems it seeks to remedy. In his final chapter, the author calls instead for a humbling recognition of the limits of reason and a much more modest role for our legal system.
Clearly written and laced with a delicious wit, Jurismania gives us a CAT-scan of the American legal mind at work. It reveals not only that the patient is even worse off than we imagined, but also clarifies the many reasons why.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." --Henry IV, Part I

Or, suggests Paul F. Campos, at the very least, let's put them out of their misery. In Jurismania, Campos does his best to demonstrate that the behavior of the legal mind, with its insistence on the "rule of law," is a "culturally sanctioned form of obsessive-compulsive behavior." In his more charitable moments, he is willing to concede that it may be suffering not from delusion, but from religious fervor. About the nicest thing he has to say about the American legal system is that it is a tremendous waste of financial resources.

The problem, as Campos sees it, is an irrational belief in the power of rationality to solve all our problems, which leads to the elevation of "social coordination and dispute processing," which is what Campos identifies as the purpose of "law," to sacrosanct procedures that are inadequate to the tasks they are being asked to perform. Nor is this state of mind limited to lawyers and legal academics; consider, suggests Campos, that many voters believe in the balanced budget amendment, "which boils down to the belief that the best way to ensure legislators pass legislation that balances the federal budget is to pass legislation requiring legislators to pass legislation that balances the federal budget." There are some situations, the author argues, for which "more law" is not the answer. Readers may find Campos's style--which references Nietzschean ethics, college football, materialist rationalism, and Ann Landers as part of the same overall argument--off-putting, but Jurismania is like a voice crying in the wilderness, describing a crisis our increasingly litigious society continues to ignore at its peril. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Don't worry, Campos is compos mentis when he claims judges and legal academics have lost their minds. A law professor, he goes one further than the anecdotal criticisms of Philip Howard (The Death of Common Sense, a 1995 best-seller) and castigates the underlying reasoning that courts cite in their decisions. To him, appellate-level reasoning is either not reasoned or insists on rationing the nonrational in a sort of obsessive-compulsive behavior. The latter occurs, in Campos' acerbic analysis, when courts enter "equilibrium zones," spheres of human experience that prove elusive to jurisprudence, such as birth and abortion, death and euthanasia, the "wall" between Church and State. But judges won't relent, inventing or refining multipronged tests to regulate such zones--behavior Campos describes as delusional. It adds up to the "juridical saturation of reality," examples of which Campos offers wry deconstructions--as of the law's reach into his local library, reflected by its detailed code of conduct for patrons. A pointed, well-argued polemic. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (July 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195130839
• ISBN-13: 978-0195130836
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,482,734 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A merciless and incisive analysis of American law, June 5, 2000

By 

Jonathan Rauch (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jurismania: The Madness of American Law (Studies of the German Historical Institute, London) (Paperback)

Campos is polemical, wicked, funny--all of that. But this is a smart and serious book. It does not argue that all law is madness, or that all lawyers are mad. It argues that enough is enough, and too much is too much, and America has way, way too much. America has made a fetish of legal procedure, continuing to unwind legal red tape and generate numberless rules and hurdles long past the point where procedure does or can serve any rational purpose. Campos's method is rigorous enough to deserve the attention of lawyers who would prefer to dismiss him, and his style is vigorous enough to make him a good read on the bus. Not to be missed.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour de force exploring the decline of the legal system, May 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Jurismania (Hardcover)

Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, offers an insider's view of the slow decay of law from a focus on justice to a focus on living up to the letter of ever more arcane law.

Campos covers a wide swath of topics, from the arbitrary nature of NCAA rules to the O.J. and Paula Jones cases to the drug war to his own town of Boulder Colorado. It is impressive that he manages to tie all of these issues together into one specific theme--that society's litigiousness is undermining both the rule of law and the equitable and, paradoxically, the efficient functioning of society.

He does not duck the tough issues; his takes on abortion, the drug war, and assisted suicide fit in with his overall theme and, while they may not please readers on either side of these controversies, he presents fresh arguments that will force open-minded readers to consider these issues in a new light.

Perhaps most impressive is the fact that Campos covers all these topics in a succinct 198 pages. Lesser writers would have needed 800 pages to cover all the topics that Campos covers in much less space.

Campos makes effective use of humor and cultural references (the Monty Python skit he cites--I won't spoil its use--is used brilliantly to illustrate his point).

This book is not for everyone. Certainly people who don't have an interest in the vagaries of the law would avoid a book like this.

People who have a direct stake in the arcaneness (there's the word again) of the current legal system will likely be bothered by this book, but I don't think that's a particularly bad outcome. Campos has written from an outsider's view (which is where I come from since I am not an attorney) with an insider's understanding of the jargon and the institutions, which make his indictment all the more devastating.

I can certainly foresee this book being the subject of much debate in law schools in the years to come. I've jokingly told friends considering the legal profession "don't do it! We don't nee! d any more lawyers!" As long as we have a few lawyers with the perspective of Paul Campos there's still hope for the profession.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The funniest book I've ever read about what's wrong with law, July 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Jurismania (Hardcover)

I got this book after reading a nasty review of it in the New York Times. The book had really upset the reviewer, and after reading it I can see why it did. It's a merciless indictment of the defenders of the legal status quo, and it's also hilarious. If you've ever thought the American legal system was crazy, this book explains why you were right.

As someone who has practiced law for more than a decade, I can't think of a better book for a lawyer, or especially someone thinking about being a lawyer, to read. If we had more law professors who thought like Campos, we wouldn't have the system that he so thoroughly devastates in this book.