How Judges Think (Pims - Polity Immigration and Society Series) - Softcover

Posner, Richard A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674048067 ISBN 13: 9780674048065

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2010

Synopsis

How Judges Think is important, if only because it's Posner looking at his own profession from the inside. Two of the chapters, "Judges Are Not Law Professors" and "Is Pragmatic Adjudication Inescapable?" are worth the price of admission by themselves. The book can be read as a screed against the jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and stands as a refutation to those who believe the category of conservative can lazily be applied to a mind as independent as Posner's." Barry Gewen, New York Times online "Opinionated, sarcastic and argumentative as ever, Posner is happy to weigh in not only on how judges think, but how he thinks they should think. When sticking to explaining the nine intellectual approaches to judging that he identifies, and to the gap between legal academics and judges, and his well-formulated pragmatic approach to judging, Posner is insightful, accessible, often funny and a model of...

About this title

Review:

Posner is unique in the world of American jurisprudence, a highly regarded U.S. appellate judge and a prolific and controversial writer on legal philosophy. Opinionated, sarcastic and argumentative as ever, Posner is happy to weigh in not only on how judges think, but how he thinks they should think. When sticking to explaining the nine intellectual approaches to judging that he identifies, and to the gap between legal academics and judges, and his well-formulated pragmatic approach to judging, Posner is insightful, accessible, often funny and a model of clarity. Publishers Weekly 20080211 Posner's latest book, How Judges Think, is important, if only because it's Posner looking at his own profession from the inside. Two of the chapters, "Judges Are Not Law Professors" and "Is Pragmatic Adjudication Inescapable?," are worth the price of admission by themselves. The book can be read as one long screed against the jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and stands as a refutation to those who believe the category of conservative can lazily be applied to a mind as independent as Posner's. --Barry Gewen New York Times on the Web 20080709

From the Back Cover:

From the book: Ivan Karamazov said that if God does not exist everything is permitted, and traditional legal thinkers are likely to say that if legalism (legal formalism, orthodox legal reasoning, a "government of laws not men," the "rule of law" as celebrated in the loftiest "Law Day" rhetoric, and so forth) does not exist everything is permitted to judges--so watch out! Legalism does exist, and so not everything is permitted. But its kingdom has shrunk and greyed to the point where today it is largely limited to routine cases, and so a great deal is permitted to judges. Just how much is permitted and how they use their freedom are the principal concerns of this book. ... I am struck by how unrealistic are the conceptions of the judge held by most people, including practicing lawyers and eminent law professors, who have never been judges--and even by some judges. This unrealism is due to a variety of things, including the different perspectives of the different branches of the legal profession--including also a certain want of imagination. It is also due to the fact that most judges are cagey, even coy, in discussing what they do. They tend to parrot an official line about the judicial process (how rule-bound it is), and often to believe it, though it does not describe their actual practices. This book parts the curtain a bit.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0674048067
• ISBN 13: 9780674048065
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400