Customer Reviews

Legal Realism Regained: Saving Realism from Critical Acclaim (Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory)

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This book is one of the excellent "Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory" volumes from Stanford University Press. It more than lives up to the high standard set by that series. The author, a Dutch academic and researcher, wants to demonstrate that Critical Legal Studies (of the 1960's through the 1980's) not only does not stand on the shoulders of the Realists of the 1930's, but in many ways is less effective as an analytical tool than the work of Llewellyn, Frank, William O. Douglas, Felix Cohen, and the other giants of the Realist movement. After an introductory chapter briefly sketching both approaches, the author focuses upon three central topics as handled by each approach: historicism, social science, and language (legal concepts). First a chapter discusses the Realists' approaches; then a succeeding chapter reviews the Crits' assessment of the same concepts and their criticisms of the legal realists. While the author clearly favors the Realists (whom he associates heavily with Pragmatism), this fact in no way diminishes the throughness and fairness with which he discusses each movement.

The chapters on the use of history are extremely interesting as to both approaches. The role of Holmes is well developed, as is the "scientific naturalism" discussed by Purcell in his excellent "The Crisis of Democratic Theory." After reading these two chapters, it is easy for the reader to see exactly where each approach differs from the other and to assess the CLS criticisms of the Realist approach. The two chapters on Social Science are equally comprehensive, but not as easy to grasp as to the intricacies of each approach. The CLS criticisms do come through loud and clear. The third topic, on language and legal concepts, I found particulary interesting because this is the most thorough discussion of what the Realists did with this concept that I have seen. Jerome Frank emerges once again as a giant in the Realist camp. A final chapter updates the discussion with some more recent developments, while discussing the work of folks like Judge Posner, Hans Joas, Brian Tamanaha, David Luban, and John Diggins.

Whether or not the author persuades the reader that the Realists have the better of the argument is secondary. I found the true value of the book to lie in the fact that you learn a tremendous amount about each camp as you read through the chapters. Particularly for younger folks not really very familiar with the enormous and incisive contributions of the Legal Realists, the book should be a true "eye-opener." At 213 pages of text, the book covers a lot of material in an efficient fashion. The author, who incidentally writes superbly cogent English, has included 13 pages of notes, a thorough bibliography and a comprehensive index. I vote for the Realists but learned a great deal about the Crits--and that is the important thing.