The Volokh Conspiracy
[Orin Kerr, September 19, 2007 at 1:54am] Trackbacks
Posner on Law Professors and the Legal Profession:
The University of Chicago Law Review has posted a series of short essays commemorating the late Professor Bernard Meltzer; among them is this quite interesting piece by Richard Posner on law professors' relationship to the legal profession. Thanks to Adam White — a mere practicing attorney, harumph — for the link.
b.:
reads more like a rant about leftists in the legal academy with Meltzer's name thrown in as bookends than it does a commemoration of the esteemed professor.

is this the highest and best economic use of Posner's writing?
9.19.2007 6:57am
Alan Gunn (mail):
A superb piece, though my view may have something to do with my having been one of the old-school straight-from-practice socratic teachers who have been displaced by the new wave--i.e., by people like Judge Posner himself. Is this the same Judge Posner who used to say that common-law judges were secret efficiency-maximizers? Who used to suggest that doctrinal scholars were a sort of lesser being than the economists?
9.19.2007 8:06am
Richard Riley (mail):
Posner is oddly silent here about being himself the single most influential leader of one of the the "challenges" he identifies to traditional doctrinal/practice-oriented legal scholarship - the challenge "from social science, and in particular from economics...." I wouldn't say he expresses regret, exactly, but he does seem to wish his law-and-econ challenge hadn't teamed up with the crits and other lefties to marginalize Meltzer and his ilk quite as much as they did.
9.19.2007 8:23am
woww (mail):
Not to change the subject, but there are some great articles at that website for the U of Chic. Law Review, including one of federal clerkships. (I haven't had time to read yours yet, Orin.)
9.19.2007 11:45am
TRE:
Does anyone recommend other writings on modern legal education?
9.19.2007 3:04pm
andy (mail) (www):
didn't Posner say that he first chooses a result based on law &economics, and then sees if there are any statutes or regulations out there that would prevent him from implementing what he thought was the economically optimal result? seems a bit weird for him to complain about professors ignoring law in favor of tangential inquiries into the social sciences.
9.19.2007 3:51pm

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