Sociological Jurisprudence

• Author: Wilfrid E. Rumble
• Pages: 2445-2446

Page 2445

Sociological JURISPRUDENCE is one of the most important schools of legal thought in the twentieth century. Its major proponent in the United States was ROSCOE POUND (1870?1964), a prolific writer who was dean of the Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936. A number of other legal educators and judges also contributed in varying degrees to the theory or practice of sociological jurisprudence. They included five former members of the Supreme Court?OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, LOUIS D. BRANDEIS, Harlan Fiske Stone, BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO, and FELIX FRANKFURTER. Even though the doctrines of these jurists were anything but uniform, they shared a number of important attitudes and ideas.

The movement for a sociological jurisprudence emerged during the Progressive era. Pound interpreted it as the "movement for pragmatism as a philosophy of law," the purpose of which was to facilitate legal reform and social progress. Although legal change should take place under the leadership of lawyers, the agenda of sociological jurisprudence did not focus on changes in legal institutions. Rather, it stressed reform of prevailing conceptions of the study, interpretation, and application of law.

This emphasis reflected a particular diagnosis of the ills of the American legal system at the outset of the twentieth century. These problems included judicial hostility to laws designed to protect workers, which courts often construed narrowly or held unconstitutional. Decisions of the Supreme Court applying the doctrine of SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS are a classic example of the tendency. The advocates of sociological jurisprudence assailed this judicial response to social legislation, which they attributed to several factors. One was the isolation of the study of law from the social sciences. This condition allegedly fostered an ignorance of social realities and needs that contributed to unjust decisions. "Unless we know the facts on which legislators may have acted," Justice Brandeis pointed out in BURNS BAKING CO. V. BRYAN (1924), "we cannot properly decide whether they were ? unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious. Knowledge is essential to understanding; and understanding should precede judging."

Pound maintained that another factor contributing to

Page 2446

judicial decisions that obstructed social progress was MECHANICAL JURISPRUDENCE, or the rigid deduction of decisions from established principles without regard to their practical effects. He...