News Releases
Jurisprudence expert to discuss formalist-realist judicial divide
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
One of the world’s foremost contemporary experts on sociological jurisprudence will present the Valparaiso University School of Law’s 26th annual Edward A. Seegers Lecture on December 4.
Professor Brian Z. Tamanaha, a widely published author and the Benjamin N. Cardozo Professor of
Law at St. John’s University School of Law, will discuss “The Formalist-Realist Divide on Judging: A Way Out” at 4 p.m. in Wesemann Hall (656 S. Greenwich St.), with a reception to immediately follow. The lecture and reception are free and open to the public.
Professor Tamanaha will discuss the contemporary debates about judging and how they are often framed in terms of two antithetical positions: formalism, with a belief in strict or mechanical rule application, and realists, with a belief that judges often have discretion and their decisions are influenced by their personal views. Reflecting this divide, various contemporary theorists are developing, respectively, what is called “new (or neo) formalism” and “new legal realism.”
In this talk, Professor Tamanaha asserts that it is false and distorting to discuss judging in these terms; that the divide is based upon flawed historical accounts of the formalists and the realists; and neither position is viable or descriptively accurate. He outlines possibilities for moving past the formalist-realist divide toward a more productive understanding.
Brian Z. Tamanaha is the author of five books, including two with Oxford University Press and two with Cambridge University Press. He is the recipient of the inaugural Dennis Leslie Mahoney Prize in Legal Theory (2006) for an outstanding contemporary work in sociological jurisprudence, and the recipient of the 2002 Herbert Jacob Book Prize. Professor Tamanaha has delivered a number of public lectures in the United States and abroad, including the Julius Stone Address (2007) at the University of Sydney and the inaugural Montesquieu Address (2004) at the University of Tilburg.
The lecture is named in honor of the late Edward A. Seegers, a Chicago attorney who was generous in his support of Valparaiso, including contributions for scholarships and buildings. He also endowed a law school professorship in honor of his parents.
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