Thomas A. Reed is an assistant District Attorney, Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Summary
A comprehensive, in-depth discussion of the most influential movement in American legal history, and one which
remains more than fifty years later the subject of lively debate, this collection of readings, written largely
between 1900 and 1940, includes works from prominent writers on the subject that have never before been generally
available. Introduced and edited by noted scholars in the field, the anthology includes such contributors as Oliver
Wendell Holmes, James Thayer, Roscoe Pound, John Chipman Gray, Wesley Hohfeld, Karl Llewellyn, Arthur Corbin, Nathan
Issacs, Robert Hale, Harold Laski, Max Radin, and others. With concise biographical notes as well as introductions
to provide historical context, each selection addresses a different debate involving Legal Realism. Included is
a selective bibliography, making the text valuable to a broad range of scholars.
Table of Contents
I. Antecedents
The Common Law (1881), Oliver Wendell Holmes
"The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law" (1893), James B. Thayer
The Path of the Law (1897), Oliver Wendell Holmes
Lochner v. New York (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting)
"Liberty of Contract" (1909), Roscoe Pound
The Nature and Sources of the Law (1909), John Chipman Gray
"Law in Books and Law in Action" (1910), Roscoe Pound
"Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning" (1913), Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld
II. The Struggle over the Meaning of "Realism"
"A Realistic Jurisprudence--The Next Step" (1930), Karl N. Llewellyn
"The Call for Realist Jurisprudence" (1931), Roscoe Pound
"Some Realism About Realism--Responding to Dean Pound" (1931), Karl N. Llewellyn
III. Law and the Market
"Offer and Acceptance, and Some of the Resulting Legal Relations" (1917), Arthur L. Corbin
"The Standardizing of Contracts" (1917), Nathan Isaacs
"What Price Contract?--An Essay in Perspective" (1931), Karl N. Llewellyn
"The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages" (1936-1937), L.L. Fuller and William R. Purdue, Jr.
IV. The Critique of the Public/Private Distinction
"Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State" (1923), Robert L. Hale
"Property and Sovereignty" (1927), Morris R. Cohen
"Law Making by Private Groups" (1937), Louis L. Jaffe
M. Witmark & Sons v. Fred Fisher Music Co. (1942) (Frank, J., dissenting)
V. Law and Organizational Society
Vegelahn V. Guntner (1896)
" The Basis of Vicarious Liability" (1917), Harold J. Laski
International News Service v. Associated Press (1918)
"The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality" (1926), John Dewey
The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932), Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means
The Administrative Process (1938), James M. Landis
VI. Legal Reasoning
The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921), Benjamin M. Cardozo
Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon (1922)
"Logical Method and Law" (1924), John Dewey
The Theory of Judicial Decision: Or How Judges Think" (1925), Max Radin
"A Return to Stare Decisis" (1928), Herman Oliphant
"The Judgement Intuitive: The Function of the 'Hunch' in Judicial Decision" (1929), Joseph C. Hutcheson,
Jr.
Law and the Modern Mind (1930), Jerome Frank
"Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach" (1935), Felix S. Cohen
"Remarks on the Theory of Apellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes Are to Be Construed"
(1950), Karl N. Llewellyn
VII. Law as Social Science
Brief Defendant in Error, Muller v. Oregon (1908), Louis Brandeis and Josephine Goldmark
"Scientific Method and the Law" (1927), Walter W. Cook
The Cheyenne Way (1941), Karl N. Llewellyn and E. Anderson Hoebel
"Law and Learning Theory: A Study in Legal Control" (1943), Underhill Moore and Charles C. Callahan
VIII. Legal Education and Legal Scholarship
Summary of Studies in Legal Education (1929), Herman Oliphant, ed.
"Institute Priests and Yale Observers--A Reply to Dean Goodrich" (1936), Thurman W. Arnold
"Goodbye to Law Reviews" (1936), Fred Rodell
