David Ingersoll, Behavioralism and the Modern Revival of Legal Realism

Abstract

David Ingersoll’s essay “Karl Llewellyn, American Legal Realism and Contemporary Legal Behavioralism” is a significant, but neglected contribution to our understanding of legal realism in the United States. This article argues that it first anticipates the shape of legal realism’s revival today and shows that Ingersoll was ahead of his time. The once dominant school of legal realism had become a much maligned theory of law when this essay was first published. Ingersoll identifies two varieties of legal realism and most critics focus on only one of them. He argues that legal realism should be revived if it develops its second variety often overlooked which accepts rule skepticism and recognizes the importance of social psychology to predicting legal outcomes more reliably.