Legal Realism, Common Courtesy, and Hypocrisy

Legal Realism for Economists

M ost economic theory presumes—often implicitly—a system of law and adjudication. After all, institutions like property, contract, and government regulation typically entail mechanisms for law-creation and lawapplication, which usually (though perhaps not inevitably) imply some kind of judicial system (Posner, 2008, pp. 5–6). Because judges are often responsible for interpreting and enforcing t...

The Limits of Legal Realism,

Holmes launched the highly successful American school of legal realism with his remark that "law" consists of "prophecies of what the courts will do in fact." [FN1] Later writers amended this proposition to include all officials, since decisions by judges constitute only a fraction of authoritative decisionmaking. [FN2] In its heyday, realism stimulated many proposals for legal reform and socia...

Legal Realism as Theory of Law

The public smoking controversy: constitutional protection v. common courtesy--comment.

Comparative Institutional Analysis and a New Legal Realism