Stephen J. Choi (New York University School of Law) and Mitu Gulati (University of Virginia School of Law) have posted The Last Casebook Hero on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Every generation of law students learns the law from a handful of judicial heroes: Cardozo, Hand, Traynor, and, for the last four decades, Posner and Easterbrook. We ask who is next in line. Cross-referencing the 148 active judges of the U.S. courts of appeals against fifty-one current casebooks spanning thirty-four subjects, we find . . . nobody. The teaching canon of the mid-2020s is dominated by the same two Reagan appointees who dominated it a quarter century ago—one retired since 2017, the other turning seventy-eight this year. The cohorts appointed over the last twenty years, by presidents of both parties, barely register. We document the collapse, work through the innocent explanations (mostly reject them), and end with a less comforting one. The tournament that today’s ambitious judges are playing no longer rewards writing for the casebooks. Nobody is asking for judicial heroes anymore.
Spoiler alert: Posner and Easterbrook!
Recommended!
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