Judge Richard Posner has died, leaving behind a legacy that places him among the most influential legal scholars ever, a pioneer in the field of law and economics, and arguably the most consequential judge at the federal appellate level in recent decades. His work spans so many areas that no obituary could fully capture its scope or significance.
During his lengthy tenure as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Posner led the charge in applying economic reasoning to legal questions. His seminal text Economic Analysis of Law—which has seen numerous editions since its inaugural release in 1973—serves as the quintessential survey of the discipline. His landmark articles on antitrust, regulation, the economics of the common law, and a host of related topics broke new ground by integrating economic insights into legal theory, guiding economists, jurists, and policymakers for decades to come.
Beyond his many contributions to law and economics, Posner produced a vast body of influential works on a wide array of other subjects. A few examples illustrate the breadth of his impact. Sex and Reason offers a deeply perceptive examination of how the law regulates intimate relations. How Judges Think and Reflections on Judging illuminate matters concerning judicial conduct and legal philosophy. Law and Literature stands as one of the most important explorations of how law appears within classic literary works. This catalog of pathbreaking Posner writings could be extended indefinitely!
Posner took up the role of a federal appellate judge in 1981, serving on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. There, he became arguably the most influential lower-court jurist of his era, penning a wide array of opinions that are frequently cited. He earned a reputation for drafting nearly all of his opinions himself, seldom delegating the writing to law clerks.
Several experiences from my own career shed some additional light on the man and his achievements.
As a first-year law student, I enrolled in an early-morning Contracts class. Not being a devotee of dawn, I occasionally slept through the session, though Posner himself would presumably never have done so. When it came time for the final exam, gaps in my understanding loomed. The standard textbook for the course offered limited clarity on these points, so I turned to the contract chapter of Economic Analysis of Law. In just a few pages, Posner clarified the issues in a way that far surpassed the longer textbook’s explanations, and my performance on the exam improved markedly as a result. He possessed a gift for distilling intricate legal problems and public-policy questions into explanations that even sleep-deprived students could grasp.
Several years later, I worked as a law clerk for a federal appellate judge who, though more conservative and of a different judicial temperament, insisted that whenever a Posner opinion was cited, the author should be properly credited as Posner. It was a small, yet meaningful, sign of the respect Posner commanded across political and jurisprudential divides.
Early in my scholarly career, I served as co-editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review. One of the most demanding duties of academic editors is handling peer reviewers, who often procrastinate or deliver subpar feedback. On a Friday afternoon, I emailed Posner to request a review. Given his dual commitments as a scholar and judge, his schedule was undoubtedly crowded. Yet, on Saturday morning, I found a remarkably thorough and insightful critique of the manuscript in my inbox—one of the finest peer reviews I have ever received. In addition to his other prodigious talents, Posner was extraordinarily diligent and efficient, making many of his colleagues look less industrious by comparison.
I had the privilege of knowing Posner over many years, though our interactions were occasional. Much of my scholarly work regarding his writings took a critical stance—for instance, my review of his book Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy elicited a substantial response from him, to which I replied briefly, and I also critiqued his defense of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kelo v. City of New London in my own work The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain—though that last reference is editorializing the citations and does not alter the factual content.
Looking back, I fear my writings did not always convey the profound respect—indeed, a certain awe—for Posner’s many achievements. I did, however, support his long-running campaign to abolish the Bluebook, the notoriously cumbersome system of legal citation. Although I am generally not inclined toward book burnings, I joined Posner in endorsing a departure from the Bluebook format. For a period, we even collaborated on persuading law-review editors to rethink the system.
There is so much more that could be said. No words of mine could ever fully capture Judge Posner’s multitude of accomplishments, nor the generosity he showed to students and younger colleagues, of which my own experiences with him were only a few small illustrations. With that in mind, I offer my deepest condolences to all who knew him—friends, family, and colleagues alike—who may be reading this…
UPDATE: For further details on Judge Posner’s life and contributions, see the obituary published by the University of Chicago Law School.
