I read William Patry’s blog regularly (and should link to it more often), but his post on Judge Posner’s newest book “How Judges Think” is truly insightful. He builds on Posner’s deconstruction of the relationship between judges and law school professors and adds legislators to the mix. The final product is an interesting description of the community and power structures surrounding each (judges, professors, and legislators) and why the tend to talk past each other. It is a great read for anyone who is interested in understanding our poltico/legal system.
Patry recites Posner’s assertion that many academics just don’t get it, and their criticism is mainly “obtuse, and unconstructive” and then goes on to say:
The feeling is mutual, though, as Judge Posner notes that few academics care about judges other than Supreme Court justices. I would add that too many academics don’t respect the work that judges do, certainly at the trial courts. To level this out, I would add that the same criticisms Judge Posner makes about academics should be directed toward federal judges in their all too often contemptuous attitudes toward Congress, even though both federal judges and members of Congress are generalists and have distinct pressures. And I would throw academics into this mix on this point: I have made a careful study of the legislature process for about 25 years, and having been a professional drafter of statutes for some of that time, I can say that other than those very few law review articles written by former congressional staffers, the hundreds of articles and books I have read by prominent scholars of statutory interpretation bear no resemblance to the work I did professionally, and as a consequence, are of zero utility other than in furthering academic careers.