The Law as it Could Be [Hardcover]

The Law As It Could Begathers Fiss’s most important work on procedure, adjudication and public reason, introduced by the author and including contextual introductions for each piece—some of which are among the most cited in Twentieth Century legal studies. Fiss surveys the legal terrain between the landmark cases ofBrown v. Board of EducationandBush v. Goreto reclaim the legal legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. He argues forcefully for a vision of judges as instruments of public reason and of the courts as a means of shaping society in the image of the Constitution.

In building his argument, Fiss attends to topics as diverse as the use of the injunction to restructure social institutions; how law and economics have misunderstood the role of the judge; why the movement seeking alternatives to adjudication fails to serve the public interest; and whyBush v. Gorewas not the constitutional crisis some would have us believe. In so doing, Fiss reveals a vision of adjudication that vindicates the public reason on whichBrown v. Board of Educationwas founded.

“Owen Fiss is the moral compass of legal liberalism, and these indispensable essays are his—and our—guide to true north. Against the reaction of the Rehnquist Court and academic fashions for economics, Marxism, and emotionalism, Fiss calmly makes the case for unvarnished reason as the only and best guide to law and life. The book's brilliant, pathbreaking meditations on the structure of legal institutions reveal a profound faith that law can be not only the instrument of justice, but can actually embody justice itself. Fiss’s unswerving commitment to the possibilities of reason, justice, and law is more than timely—it is essential to the very project of the law.”
-Noah Feldman,author ofAfter Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy

“An uplifting book.”
-Choiclģ