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THE COMMON LAW TRADITION
A Collective Portrait of Five Legal Scholars
George W. Liebmann
“George Liebmann’s skillful blending of biography and legal history
makes The Common Law Tradition a must-read book for anyone who
wants to understand the development of American law in the twentieth
century. His analysis of the values that animated his five protagonists
also prompts reflection on the qualities of mind and character that are
needed to sustain the rule of law in a democratic republic.”
—Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University
This book commemorates a place and a time in American law teaching, but more importantly, an outlook: the common law
tradition. That outlook was empirical and tolerant. These values were carried into expression by a group of people who were not
part of a cult or faction nor ruled by the herd instinct. In The Common Law Tradition George W. Liebmann has prepared a
collective portrait of five scholars who epitomize the tradition.
The focus is Chicago in the 1960s, when the “law and economics” movement occupied a rather minor place. The five figures
considered—Edward H. Levi, Harry Kalven, Jr., Karl Llewellyn, Philip Kurland, and Kenneth Culp Davis—did much to broaden
the perspectives of the legal academy. Levi made use of sociology, economics, and comparative law. Kalven collaborated with
sociologists on the Jury Project and with economists on tax law and auto compensation plans. Llewellyn’s commitment to
empirical research underpinned his work on the Uniform Commercial Code. Kurland’s approach to constitutional law was
highlighted by his insistence on the relevance of legal history. Davis was an energetic comparativist in his work on administrative
law. What distinguished these Chicagoans is that their work was practical and rooted in the law, and hence yielded concrete
applications. The group’s diversity, the tolerant atmosphere in which they taught and wrote, and the attachment of its individual
members to empirical approaches differentiate them from today’s legal scholars and make their ideas of continuing importance.
The Common Law Tradition examines these figures’ lives and achievements, and assesses the extent to which their
immediate agendas were realized. In a year devoted to celebration of the constitutional heroics instigated by Brown v. Board
of Education, this book provides a reminder of what has been lost during the last fifty years: a consensual, gradualist, and
empirical approach to law reform.
George W. Liebmann is a Baltimore lawyer in private practice with the firm of Liebmann and Shively, P.A. He has been
Simon Industrial and Professional Fellow at the University of Manchester and Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College,
Cambridge. He is the author of many works, including Maryland District Court Law and Practice, The Little Platoons,
and Neighborhood Futures, published in a paperback edition by Transaction.
ISBN: 1-4128-0560-0; 385 pages; Paper; $29.95/£22.50/$C36.95
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