The law as it could be

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 The Forms of Justice -- 2 The Social and Political Foundations of Adjudication -- 3 The Right Degree of Independence -- 4 The Bureaucratization of the Judiciary -- 5 Against Settlement -- 6 The Allure of Individualism -- 7 The Political Theory of the Class Action -- 8 The Awkwardness of the Criminal Law -- 9 Objectivity and Interpretation -- 10 Judging as a Practice -- 11 The Death of Law -- 12 Reason vs. Passion -- 13 The Irrepressibility of Reason -- 14 Bush v. Gore and the Question of Legitimacy -- Afterword -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments -- About the Author

The Law As It Could Be gathers 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 of Brown v. Board of Education and Bush v. Gore to 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 argu