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This is Lawrence Solum's legal theory weblog. Legal Theory Blog comments and reports on recent scholarship in jurisprudence, law and philosophy, law and economic theory, and theoretical work in substantive areas, such as constitutional law, cyberlaw, procedure, criminal law, intellectual property, torts, contracts, etc.

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Wednesday, January 29, 2003
 
Confessions of a Neo-Formalist Friday last, I was at Tulane Law School workshopping a paper on welfarism, but one of the most interesting parts of the visit was a lunch-time conversation about formalism. I publicly confessed that I was a neo-formalist. New Orleans is in the South--everyone was very polite, but I could sense that a mild frisson of horror was passing over my lunch companions. Marjorie Kornhauser politely but firmly began to argue that so-called formalists frequently conceal their policy preferences under cover of formalist rhetoric. And surely she is right about many invocations of formalism. But is formalism impossible? In this regard, consider two interesting pieces one by Tom Grey and the other by Joe Isenbergh, both available on SSRN. Joe's piece is titled "Activists Vote Twice" (you can download by clicking on the title), and it argues that strategic considerations lead formalist (Isenbergh uses the term "neutralist") judges to become activists. His stunning example is a two judge court, with a coin-toss resolving ties. One judge is an an activist; the other judge is a formalist. The two judges also disagree about ideology, i.e., preferred policy outcomes. The acitivst judge wins when the formalist agrees on formalist grounds. The activist judge wins half the time when formalist judge disagrees on formalist judge--because half the time, the coin comes up heads. Won't the formalist judge get fed up with this situation and begin to vote her ideology? If the answer is no, I think it must be because it is possible for judges to internalize care for the rule of law as their own highest order preference. In the language of Virtue Jurisprudence, judges can acquire the virtue of justice. For my take on this, see my "Virtue Jurisprudence: A Virtue Centered Theory of Judging," forthcoming in Metaphilosophy. Tom's paper is titled "The New Formalism" (click on the title). Tom's piece is a very thoughtful and sensitive analysis of neo-formalism as articulated by contemporary conservatives, and especially Antonin Scalia. Tom argues that this version of formalist combines four commitments: (1) Objectivisim, as Tom explains it, "At the most general level, formalists want law to be determinate -- to take the form of rules rather than open-ended standards." (2) Originalism, that is, the view that the constiution should be understood to conform to the original meaning, and hence rejection of the idea of a living constitution. (3) Textualism, especially as applied to statutory interpretation. (4) Conceptualism, by which Tom means that formalists "prefer to treat abstract categories like contract and tort as coherent structures of concepts and principles, rather than as bodies of sublegislation generated in the course of judicial dispute-resolution." The most interesting thing about Tom's paper is the elegant defense he offers of neo-formalism against the charge of internal inconsistency. Not that Tom is a neo-formalist; he ends by arguing (in my opinion, rather too quickly) for the proposition that realism can capture the good in neo-formalism. It was not that long ago that calling someone a formalist was an insult. Not anymore.


Wednesday, January 15, 2003
 
Originalism Marches On There is much to say about the Supreme Court's decision today in Eldred v. Ashcroft. (Opinions, Links to Articles, Etc.) As an intellectual property scholar, I find the result troubling. From the legal theory point of view, however, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the opinion is that originalist thinking dominated the discourse. Justice Ginsburg relies almost entirely on historical practice as the basis for her opinion. Justice Ginsburg quotes Justice Holmes (of all people!) for the proposition, "a page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U. S. 345, 349 (1921) (Holmes, J.). Moreover, the "construction of Congress's authority under the Copyright Clause by [those] contemporary with [the Constitution's] formation, . . .merited very great and in this case almost conclusive weight." (internal ciations omitted). Justice Stevens opinion also operates almost exclusively within an originalist framework. Justice Breyer alone pursues a different path, and his opinion reflects the overwhelming consensus among economists that the Copyright Term Extension Act is poor public policy. Justice Ginsburg's reply, "It is doubtful, however, that those architects of our Nation, in framing the 'limited Times' prescription, thought in terms of the calculator rather than the calendar." Eldred is just another piece of evidence for the increasing dominance of originalism in constitutional discourse. When Paul Brest wrote his "Misconcieved Quest," originalism seemed dead. Today, the question might be, "Is everyone an originalist?"


Monday, January 06, 2003
 
Warren on Bankruptcy and Class Elizabeth Warren (Harvard Law School) has posted Financial Collapse and Class Status: Who Goes Bankrupt? (Osgoode Hall Law Review, Vol. 41, No. 1, p. 114, Spring 2003) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
    Every policy prescription, economic analysis, or news report about consumer bankruptcy rests on one or another unspoken image of the estimated 1.6 million families that will file in a single year. Data from the 2001 Consumer Bankruptcy Project permit a systematic analysis of the composition of those who file for personal bankruptcy, focusing on their educations, occupations and home ownership status. These attributes serve as a proxy for class identification. Based on these indicia, more than 90 percent of the families in bankruptcy qualify as middle class. These data are a powerful reminder that whatever else might be said about those in bankruptcy, these people are not some sub-group of Americans safely distanced from the middle class, but instead are co-workers, neighbors and families woven throughout the fabric of American society.


Wednesday, January 01, 2003
 
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