Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary - Tapa dura

Divergent Paths should certainly be of considerable interest to anyone interested in public policy and academic issues. And anyone interested in the American legal system, at any and all its levels (but especially that of the federal courts), should find themselves very entertained and hopefully helpfully provoked by Posner's book.-- (12/25/2015) Divergent Paths is a valuable contribution to debates over the future of federal courts and law schools alike...Posner is, as always, uniformly sensible and frequently brilliant.--Kermit Roosevelt"New York Times Book Review" (01/29/2016) The great strength of Divergent Paths--and the principal reason it should command the attention of readers--is Posner's candid, compelling and accessible assault on legal formalism (and its kissing cousins, originalism, textualism, literalism, and canons of construction), the dominant method used by federal judges.--Glenn C. Altschuler"Huffington Post" (01/14/2016) [Posner's] caustic wit and brutal candidness are on fine display in [his] latest book, a trenchant dissection of both the academy and the judiciary's flaws...Equal parts edifying and entertaining, Divergent Paths is surely the funniest book you will ever read by a sitting federal judge.--Mark Joseph Stern"Slate" (01/14/2016)

Judges and legal scholars talk past one another, if they have any conversation at all. Academics criticize judicial decisions in theoretical terms, which leads many judges to dismiss academic discourse as divorced from reality. Richard Posner reflects on the causes and consequences of this widening gap and what can be done to close it.