1 Kennedy, Duncan, How the Law School fails – A Polemic, 1 Yale Law Review of Law and Social Action 71 (1970).Google Scholar

2 see Frankenberg, Günter, Partisanen der Rechtskritik: Critical Legal Studies etc., in Neue Theorien des Rechts 97 (Sonja Buckel/Ralph Christensen/Andreas Fischer-Lescano eds., 2006). For the earlier works see Kennedy, Duncan and Klare, Karl E., A Bibliography of Critical Legal Studies, 94 Yale L.J. 461 (1984).Google Scholar

3 Duxbury, Neil, Patterns of American Jurisprudence 493 (1995).Google Scholar

4 “[S]tudent culture is relentlessly upper middle class” (Kennedy, Legal Education and The Reproduction of Hierarchy (2004) [hereinafter Kennedy, Reproduction], at 38), “[t]he teachers are overwhelmingly white, male and deadingly straight and middle class in manner” (ibid., at 19)Google Scholar

5 Kennedy, supra note 1, at 76, 80. And so one would, eventually, ask oneself: “Why am I taking this shit from them?“ (ibid., at 75).Google Scholar

6 Interview with Kennedy, Duncan, 24 The Advocate No. 2 (1994) at 60.Google Scholar

7 “In Heidegger we saw (…) a new beginning (…). A philosophy that cared for the human existence, for human conditions and not only for abstract ideas and principles.” Herbert Marcuse, Interview, in Befreiung Denken – Ein politischer Imperativ. Ein Materialienband zu Herbert Marcuse 99 (Peter-Erwin Jansen ed., 1989). Translation by the author.Google Scholar

8 For Mario Savio see the many contributions (especially that by Lynne Hollander Savio) in The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (Robert Cohen and Reginald Zelnik eds., 2002). See also the substantial reminiscence by Jo Freeman, At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Education of an Activist, 1961-1965 (2003).Google Scholar

9 For Kennedy's socialization see the biographical sketch provided by Eleanor Kerlow, Poisoned Ivy. How Egos, Ideology and Power Politics Almost Ruined Harvard Law School 39 (1994). In Germany, too, scholars aimed at a renaissance of Marx’ early writings opposite to institutionalized Marxism. See, Wolf Paul, Der aktuelle Begriff marxistischer Rechtstheorie, in Probleme marxistischer Rechtstheorie 72 (Hubert Rottleuthner ed., 1975).Google Scholar

10 Kraushaar, Wolfgang, Denkmodelle der 68er-Bewegung, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (B 22-23) 14 (2001).Google Scholar

11 Kennedy, supra, note 1, at 85.Google Scholar

12 See, however, Fischl, Michael, The Question that Killed Critical Legal Studies, 17 Law & Social Inquiry 779 (1992); see Kennedy today: “The refusal to formulate an alternative vision was what allowed CLS to exist as a “location” for exhilarating encounters” (Kennedy, Reproduction, at 217).Google Scholar

13 Freeman, Alan D., Truth and Mystification in Legal Scholarship, 90 Yale L.J. 1230 (1981).Google Scholar

14 Bourdieu, Pierre, Die verborgenen Mechanismen der Macht 75 (1992). Translation by the author.Google Scholar

15 Kennedy, supra, note 1, at 75.Google Scholar

16 Saage, Richard, Utopieforschung – Eine Bilanz (1997).Google Scholar

17 See Kennedy, Duncan, A Critique of Adjudication [Fin de siècle] (1997), and the review by Oliver Lepsius, 63 Rabels Zeitschrift 378 (1999). For the earlier radicalism see the in-depth analysis by Alexander Somek, Haben Sie heute schon dekonstruiert? Zur Bedeutung der Dekonstruktion in der neueren amerikanischen Rechtstheorie, 27 Rechtstheorie 201 (1995). An unagitated critique of the indeterminacy thesis was given by Lawrence Solum, On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma, 54 Univ. of Chicago L. Rev. 462 (1987). The famous apology came from Joseph W. Singer, The Player and the Cards, 94 Yale L. J. 1 (1984). (describing “why traditional legal theory has failed us, and how, in light of that failure, we can imagine new ways to live together”, ibid. at 9).Google Scholar

18 As done by Goodrich, Peter, Duncan Kennedy as I imagine him: The Man, the Work, his Scholarship, and the Polity, 22 Cardozo L. Rev. 971, 978-980 (2001).Google Scholar

19 See the thoughtful remarks by Mikesic, Ivana, Die Kritik der Kritik der Kritik, Kritische Justiz 132 (1999).Google Scholar

20 Kahlenberg, Richard D., Broken Contract. A Memoir of Harvard Law School 84 (2nd ed.; 1999).Google Scholar

21 Kennedy, Duncan, The Social Justice Element in Legal Education in the Unites States, 1 Unbound 93, 104 (2005). Nevertheless, when Kennedy talks about the diversity within law school faculties today, readers will find a mildness of age here, too: “I think this is a case where things worked out fairly well over the long run.“ (ibid., at 104).Google Scholar

22 For an example of that critique, see Thomas C. Grey, Langdell's Orthodoxy, 45 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 14 (1983).Google Scholar

23 Horwitz, Morton, The Rise of Legal Formalism in American Law, 19 American Journal of Legal History 215 (1975).Google Scholar

24 Clark, D.S., Tracing the Roots of American Legal Education – A Nineteenth Century German Connection, 51 Rabels Zeitschrift 313 (1987). See also Laura Appleman, The Rise of the Modern American Law School: How Professionalization, German Scholarship and Legal Reform Shaped Our System of Legal Education, 39 New England L. Rev. 251 (2005).Google Scholar

25 For an overview see Jan Schröder, Recht als Wissenschaft (2001).Google Scholar

26 See the standard enquiry by William P. LaPiana, Logic and Experience. The Origin of Modern American Legal Education (1994).Google Scholar

27 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, The Common Law 1 (1881).Google Scholar

28 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Review of Langdell, A Selection of Cases on the Law of Contracts, et al., 14 Am. U. L. Rev. 234 (1880). Holmes's treatment is by no means an altogether negative account of Langdell's scholarship. Attacks on Langdell regarding the case method, however, can be found in Oliver Wendell Holmes, Book Notices, 5 Am. U. L. Rev. 539 (1871).Google Scholar

29 See Herget, James E. and Wallace, Stephen, The German Free Law Movement as the Source of American Legal Realism, 73 Virginia L. Rev. 399 (1987).Google Scholar

30 For an in-depth analysis see Schweber, Howard, The “Science” of Legal Science: The Model of the Natural Sciences in Nineteenth-Century American Legal Education, 17 Law & Hist. Rev. 421 (1999). Naturally, here the differences between “Wissenschaft” and “Science” are significant.Google Scholar

31 An important difference, however, lies in the very contrary assessment of metaphysics in law: Germany has yet maintained what I like to call a ‘metaphysical craving’, which is widely lacking from American discourses. I have tried to further outline this thesis in Viktor Winkler, Some Realism about Rationalism: Economic Analysis of Law in Germany, 6 German Law Journal 1033 (2005).Google Scholar

32 Pound, Roscoe, Mechanical Jurisprudence, 8 Colum. L. Rev. 605 (1908). Pound, of course, stands for the apology of American legal formalism, too. I have tried to make a case for the ‘formalist’ Pound in Viktor Winkler, The Great Protector. Roscoe Pound (1870-1964) zum 40. Todestag, 24 Newsletter of the German-American Lawyers-Association 104 (2004). Also see the author's In Memoriam Roscoe Pound, 13 Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 105 (2005).Google Scholar

33 See Speziale, Marcia, Langdell's Concept of Law as Science: The Beginning of Antiformalism in American Legal Theory, 5 Vermont Law Rev. 1 (1980), and more in-depth Burlette Carter, Reconstructing Langdell, 32 Georgia Law Review 81 (1997).Google Scholar

34 See particularly Kimball, Bruce A., The Langdell Problem: Historicizing the Century of Historiography, 1906-2000s, 22 Law & Hist. Rev. 277 (2004), as well as Young Christopher Langdell: The Formation of an Educational Reformer 1826–1854, 52 Journal of Legal Education 189 (2002), “Warn Students That I Entertain Heretical Opinions, Which They Are Not to Take as Law“: The Inception of Case Method Teaching in the Classrooms of the Early C. C. Langdell, 1870–1883, 17 Law & Hist. Rev. 57 (1999).Google Scholar

35 For the many other influences (French (post)structuralism, existentialism, feminism, left Weberianism etc.) see Günter Frankenberg, Down by Law: Irony, Seriousness, and Reason, 83 Northwestern University Law Review 360 (1988). A case for “returning” to the Frankfurt school roots was made by Jason Whitehead, From Criticism to Critique: Preserving the Radical Potential of Critical Legal Studies Through a Re-examination of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, 26 Florida State University Law Review 701 (1999).Google Scholar

36 See Edwards, Harry T., The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession, 91 Mich. L. Rev. 34 (1992) (blaming today's law schools for too much theory and not enough “practice”, especially in “quixotic” Ivy League education). See also Edwards, The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession: A Postscript, 91 Mich. L. Rev. 2191 (1993).Google Scholar

37 Osborn graduated from Harvard Law School in 1970.Google Scholar

38 One L. The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School (1977) [HLS class of ‘78].Google Scholar

39 The High Citadel: The Influence of Harvard Law School (1978) [HLS class of ‘74].Google Scholar

40 Kahlenberg, supra, note 20. [HLS class of ‘89].Google Scholar

41 Hansen, Klaus-Henning, Nitsche, Mario, and Walther, Manfred, Repetitorbesuch als Strategie sozialer Anpassung, 4 Zeitschrift für Soziologie 234 (1975).Google Scholar

42 “[T]he health of any (…) law school rests in departure from normality and deadly sanity. Freak persons and freak policies are needed.” (Karl N. Llewellyn, On What Is Wrong With So-Called Legal Education, 35 Colum. L. Rev. 651 [1935]).Google Scholar

43 Stolleis, Michael, Das Zögern beim Blick in den Spiegel, Die deutsche Rechtswissenschaft nach 1933 und nach 1945 in 1 Nationalsozialismus in den Kulturwissenschaften 11, 29 (Hartmut Lehmann & Otto Gerhard Oexle eds., 2004) (referring to the first years after 1945).Google Scholar

44 Wiethölter, Rudolf, Rechtswissenschaft 9 (1968). Translation by author.Google Scholar