Description
Book Synopsis"The Law As It Could Be" gathers Fiss's most important work on procedure, adjudication and public reason, introduced by the author and including contextual introductions for each piece - some of which are among the most cited in 20th Century American legal studies.
Trade ReviewRefreshingly straightforward. Fiss writes in the style of John Marshall, sweeping the reader along with vigorous argumentation. * The Law and Politics Book Review *
An uplifting book. * Choice *
Owen Fiss is the moral compass of legal liberalism, and these indispensable essays are hisand ourguide to true north. Against the reaction of the Rehnquist Court and academic fashions for economics, Marxism, and emotionalism, Fiss calmly makes the case for unvarnished reason as the only and best guide to law and life. The book's brilliant, pathbreaking meditations on the structure of legal institutions reveal a profound faith that law can be not only the instrument of justice, but can actually embody justice itself. Fisss unswerving commitment to the possibilities of reason, justice, and law is more than timelyit is essential to the very project of the law. -- Noah Feldman,author of After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy
Table of ContentsContentsPreface 1 The Forms of Justice2 The Social and Political Foundations of Adjudication3 The Right Degree of Independence 4 The Bureaucratization of the Judiciary5 Against Settlement 6 The Allure of Individualism 7 The Political Theory of the Class Action 8 The Awkwardness of the Criminal Law 9 Objectivity and Interpretation 10 Judging as a Practice 11 The Death of Law? 12 Reason vs. Passion 13 The Irrepressibility of Reason 14 Bush v. Gore and the Question of Legitimacy Afterword Notes Index Acknowledgments About the Author
