{"id":4184,"date":"2009-03-13T12:51:01","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T17:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=4184"},"modified":"2009-03-13T12:52:17","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T17:52:17","slug":"influential-articles-llewellyn%e2%80%99s-law-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/03\/influential-articles-llewellyn%e2%80%99s-law-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Influential Articles: Llewellyn\u2019s Law-in-Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In response to the Blog editor’s call for discussions of law review articles that have influenced our work as academics, I offer a few words on Karl Llewellyn’s “A Realistic Jurisprudence – The Next Step,” 30 Columbia Law Review<\/em> 431 (1930).\u00a0 Llewellyn’s words are often cited as the first important salvo of the legal realist movement, and the article has influenced my own teaching and writing in virtually every subject area I’ve tackled.<\/p>\n

Llewellyn begins by asserting that “law” is one of our “loosest of suggestive symbols.”\u00a0 “Law” ranges in his mind from such simple forms as statutes and appellate holdings to a range of socio-cultural control devices and institutions.\u00a0 “I have no desire to exclude anything from matters legal,” Llewellyn says.\u00a0 “I am not going to attempt a definition of “law.\u00a0 Not anybody’s definition; much less my own.”<\/p>\n

However, Llewellyn then goes on in the bulk of the article to emphasize a particular “focus” or “point of reference.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

He acknowledges that written rules or precepts can help fix the attention of legal thinkers, but he thinks it’s more useful to consider law as it emerges from human contacts with courts, the legal profession, law enforcement, and other legal institutions.\u00a0 This is “law-in-action” rather than “law-in-books.”\u00a0 It is “law” on the level of “isness” rather than “oughtness.”\u00a0 It is messier and less predictable, and Llewellyn understands why legalists might shy away from the conceptualization.\u00a0 “Always the night of words will close again in beauty over the wild, streaked disturbance.”<\/p>\n

In conclusion, Llewellyn suggests “law” need not come only from human contacts with legal institutions.\u00a0 Beyond the legal institutions, after all, is the whole “social set-up.”\u00a0 “Part of law, in many aspects, is all of society, and all of man in society.”\u00a0 Thoughts of “law,” if approached from the right point of reference, can invite consideration of normative human behavior in general.\u00a0 This, in turn, might even lead us to reflect on what we mean by “humanity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In response to the Blog editor’s call for discussions of law review articles that have influenced our work as academics, I offer a few words on Karl Llewellyn’s “A Realistic Jurisprudence – The Next Step,” 30 Columbia Law Review 431 (1930).\u00a0 Llewellyn’s words are often cited as the first important salvo of the legal realist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-scholarship","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}