Legal Theory Blog
3 days ago · Rafał Mańko (Central European University, Democracy Institute) has posted Towards an Ideological History of Private Law or What Legal History Can Gain from Critical Legal Theory on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The aim of the present chapter is to enquire about the relationship between ideology and private law, with particular reference to the …
Legal Theory Lexicon: Living Constitutionalism
Nov 25, 2018 · Introduction Constitutional discourse in both the academy and the public sphere has recently included quite a bit of talk about "originalism." But what about originalism's great historical rival, "living constitutionalism?" What is living constitutionalism and …
Legal Theory Lexicon
Introduction. Law students soon learn that the interpretation of legal texts is one of the most important things that lawyers and judges do. In a previous Legal Theory Lexicon entry, a distinction was made between "interpretation" and "construction." Although we could use other words to express the distinction, it expresses an important conceptual difference between …
Legal Theory Blog
Jan 11, 2025 · Wilkinson‐Ryan, Hoffman, & Campbell on Contract Experiences of Ordinary Folk. Tess Wilkinson‐Ryan (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School), David A. Hoffman (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School), & Emily Campbell (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School) have posted Contracts for Everyone on SSRN.
Legal Theory Lexicon: The Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty
Sep 9, 2012 · Introduction. The counter-majoritarian difficulty may be the best known problem in constitutional theory.The phrase is attributed to Alexander Bickel—a Yale Law School Professor—who is said to have introduced it in his famous book The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics.. Whatever Bickel actually meant by the phrase, it has now taken on a life of its own.
Legal Theory Blog: Legal Theory Lexicon: Textualism
Sep 5, 2021 · Introduction One of the most important topics in legal theory is “legal interpretation,” which deals with the derivation of meaning from legal texts. Of course, legal interpretation is a very large topic, with several different dimensions and approaches. This post...
Legal Theory Lexicon: Hart
Sep 24, 2023 · Introduction. How can we look at a legal system? H.L.A. Hart famously deployed the distinction between external and internal perspectives on a legal system in his famous book, The Concept of Law.This post provides a very brief introduction to this distinction for law students (especially first-year law students) with an interest in legal theory.
Legal Theory Lexicon 051: Vagueness and Ambiguity
Dec 10, 2023 · Introduction. This week the Legal Theory Lexicon entry focuses on "ambiguity" and "vagueness"--two important concepts for the theory of interpretation. Some legal texts are ambiguous--they contain words or phrases that can have two or more distinct meanings. And some legal texts are vague--they use concepts that have indefinite application to particular cases.
Legal Theory Lexicon: Legal Theory Lexicon 021: Speech Acts
Jul 4, 2021 · Introduction Speech act theory will forever be associated with the great J. L. Austin, the Oxford philosopher whose work in the 1950s had an enormous influence on analytic and Anglophone philosophy. One of Austin's core insights is reflected in the...
Legal Theory Lexicon: Legal Theory Lexicon 005: Holdings
Nov 10, 2024 · Introduction It used to be the case that an endless investigation of the difference between holding and dictum was a central preoccupation of the first year of law school.Nowadays, depending on which law school you attend and which set of instructors you are assigned, it is perfectly conceivable that you might make it all the way to your second year, with only a vague sense of what the ...