A Critical Legal Studies Perspective (original) (raw)

Legal Philosophy in America (2008)

The Oxford Handbook of American Philosophy (Cheryl Misak, ed.), 2008

This article o ers an overview of the major areas and approaches where American theorists have o ered signi cant contributions to legal philosophy. The rst section discusses American legal realism; the second section looks brie y at the legal process school; the third section gives brief overviews of law and economics and the other post-realist critical theories; the fourth section summarizes the approach of Lon Fuller; the fth section examines the legal theory of Ronald Dworkin; and the fth section summarizes some signi cant American contributors to schools of thought that originated in Europe, as well as American contributions to the analysis of legal concepts and doctrinal areas. TO THE EXTENT that there is something distinctive about legal philosophy in America or by Americans (cf. Leiter 1997), it connects to a pragmatic or prescriptive focus, and a xation on judicial reasoning in general, and constitutional decision making in particular. However, American theorists have also made important contributions to analytical legal philosophy (if mostly thereby furthering projects begun in Britain or continental Europe). This chapter o ers an overview of the major areas and approaches where American theorists have o ered signi cant contributions to legal philosophy. Section I discusses American legal realism; section II looks brie y at the legal process school; section III gives brief overviews of law and economics and the other postrealist critical theories; section IV summarizes the approach of Lon Fuller; section V examines the legal theory of Ronald Dworkin; and section VI summarizes some signi cant American contributors to schools of thought that originated in Europe, as well as American contributions to the analysis of legal concepts and doctrinal areas.

Two Challenges to Normative Legal Scholarship

2012

1 The Internal and External Perspective on Law 178 2 Legal Science in Legal Discourse 181 3 Norms and Facts 186 4 What can Legal Science Learn from Social Science? 190 5 The Critic’s Narrative of Law and Legal Discourse 193 6 The Problem of Reductionism 196 References 201

Natural law in American jurisprudence: Calder vs. Bull and Corfield v. Coryell and their progeny

2017

This work is dedicated to the memory of my father, Donald Mock (1936-2009), who would be more excited than I am that his son got a Ph.D. I want to thank my advisor Professor Judith Swanson of the Boston University Political Science Department. She skillfully guided me through this process, and her comments on my drafts were always insightful. My thoughts were much more precisely and clearly stated because of her feedback. I definitely made the right choice in selecting her. Professor James Fleming of the Boston University School of Law made tremendous improvements in my work. I benefited from his deep learning in the fields of natural and constitutional law and he shaped much of this project. Dr. David Glick of the Boston University Political Science Department introduced several important perspectives that hadn't occurred to me. I would also like to thank Professor Shep Melnick from Boston College and Professor Patrick McGhee from the University of Bolton (UK) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor McGhee was a big help to me on the day of my oral defense. Over a lengthy academic career as a postgraduate student, there have been several scholars who have shaped and inspired me and improved my analytical abilities.

In Praise of Legal Scholarship

William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, 2017

INTRODUCTIONIt is commonplace to hear legal scholarship derided as out of touch, too theoretical, low quality, unread, and of little practical impact.1 Chief Justice John Roberts reportedly asserted that he seldom reads or relies on law review articles.2Pick up a copy of any law review that you see and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria, or something, which I'm sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn't of much help to the bar.3Judge Harry Edwards is likewise famously critical of legal scholarship. He has written a number of law review articles criticizing legal scholarship.4 In these articles, Judge Edwards claims that legal scholarship does not address the concerns of the profession because it has "little relevance to concrete issues, or addresses concrete issues in a wholly theoretical manner."5 Perhaps most curiously, this critique is one that ac...