For Bob Gordon

The principal mechanisms for this extraordinary trick are the two theoretical moves most identified with the theoretical frame Bob helped to erect: the idea that law is constitutive in history and the idea that its history is contingent.4 These two ideas now appear in dozens of books in the field,5...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Stanford law review 2018-05, Vol.70 (5), p.1681-1687
Main Author: Witt, John Fabian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Essays
FINAL REMARKS
Gordon, Robert W
History
Law schools
Learning
Legal history
Realism
Students
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Summary:The principal mechanisms for this extraordinary trick are the two theoretical moves most identified with the theoretical frame Bob helped to erect: the idea that law is constitutive in history and the idea that its history is contingent.4 These two ideas now appear in dozens of books in the field,5 as well as in countless chapters and articles.6 They are the subject of conferences and symposia.7 Bob has no monopoly on such ideas, of course. Unlike, say, science, film, business schools, and sport fishing, the law's constitutive oomph-the thing that gives law the authority to leave its imprint on the world-is rooted in its claims to legitimacy. PURSUING JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE IN AMERICA 4 (2012); see also James Whitman, European Commission Savages US, BALKINIZATION (Dec. 30, 2017, 1:56 PM), https://perma.cc/CFV8-8JT6 (remarking on the deep politicization of U.S. judicial selection methods). For a sampling of Gordon's works, see Robert W. Gordon, The Citizen Lawyer-A Brief Informal History of a Myth with Some Basis in Reality, 50 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1169 (2009); Robert W. Gordon, Commentary, A Collective Failure of Nerve: The Bar's Response to Kaye Scholer, 23 LAW & SOC.
ISSN:0038-9765
1939-8581