The Common Law

Holmes's 1897 address defines law as a prediction of what courts will actually do and separates law from morality. The most cited essay in American jurisprudence.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

A judge explains how judges really decide cases, weighing logic, history, custom and social welfare. Cardozo's Yale lectures remain a classic account of judicial reasoning.

Benjamin N. Cardozo

Pound examines the forces that shaped the common law, from feudalism and Puritanism to the courts, and calls for a sociological jurisprudence suited to modern society.

Roscoe Pound

Gray argues that law is what the courts lay down, while statutes, precedents and custom are only its sources. A key precursor of legal realism, written with unusual clarity.

John Chipman Gray