‘Quotable Judge Posner’ Is Law Prof’s Life Project
By Martha Neil
One renowned jurist on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has many admirers. But law professor Robert Blomquist is surely among the foremost fans of Judge Richard Posner.
After reading all of the judge’s more than 2,250 opinions from a 25-year period between 1981 and 2006, Blomquist has put together a book composed of his gems of jurisprudence organized alphabetically by subject area of the law. Titled The Quotable Judge Posner, it has just been published by the State University of New York Press.
“The bottom line here is that Judge Posner is one of the few appellate judges that writes his own opinions,” Blomquist, who teaches at Valparaiso University School of Law, tells the ABA Journal. “Otherwise it would be like getting quotations from law clerks.”
Blomquist says he culled down some 700 typed manuscript pages of quotations from Posner’s opinions by looking for those that best demonstrated his wit, humor and insight into the law and American society, among other qualities. The judge “comes up with just really well-reasoned insights that everybody can learn from,” he says, regardless of their own personal political views.
Tags: Richard Posner
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