Weekly Topic: Models of Hierarchy

Reflecting upon his "Utopian Proposal" for disrupting institutional hierarchies in law schools, Kennedy observes that his plan "already seems [. . .] dated and inadequate, mainly because it doesn't pay enough explicit attention to the modeling of hierarchy through teacher-student and student-student relationships." (614) Compare the models of hierarchy Kennedy discusses (602-608) to your experience.

• Does your experience fit into any of the standard reactions to hierarchy Kennedy outlines (608-610) and if not how would you adjust his account to better reflect your experience?
  
• Based on your understanding of the hierarchical relationships between teachers and students and among different student populations, how could Kennedy's proposal be altered to better address your experience of these kinds of hierarchical relationship?

Critical Legal Nihilism?

I wanted to respond to Rob M's claims that the differences between realism and critical legal studies are small and that both express an essentially quietistic attitude toward the possibility of altering the legal system. For the record, sometimes "posts" will respond to one another. What starts out as a comment will sometimes become much more involved. When that happens, just post your comment separately and then link back to the original, as I have done above.

The difference between legal realism and critical legal studies might pertain to the possibility of improving the predictability of laws. Remembering that critical legal studies rejects the empirical method of realism because that method arguably concludes what it assumes, critical legal studies argues that the inherently subjective nature of empirical research makes it difficult to conclude any general assessment of the law using that method.

More to the point, if critical legal studies denies the empirical method of realism, the conceptual method of positivism and the moral evaluative method of natural law, then what method does it promote? If it does not promote any method as being adequate, why might this be? If critical legal studies is effectively non-normative, is this the same thing as being quietistic or even nihilistic, claiming that certain methods of altering the law are not only ineffective, but that all methods are ineffective because “in [. . .] fact [critical legal theorists] do not believe it is possible to change the system enough, or [that we] have the ability to remove human biases, to actually alter the system and make the improvements necessary”?