Formalism and Pragmatism in American Law

In Formalism and Pragmatism in American Law Thomas Grey analyzes how these two influential modes of legal thought have influenced law in the United States since the late 19th Century.

Thomas C. Grey, Ll.B. (1968) Yale Law School, is Sweitzer Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Stanford Law School. He is a leading legal theorist and historian of the development of modern American legal thought. He has written extensively on the development of such strains of legal thought as pragmatism, formalism, and realism with particular attention to the jurisprudence of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Earlier in his career, he wrote significant articles on constitutional law, history, and theory, with special emphasis on the "unwritten constitution" of unenumerated constitutional rights. He also taught torts to first-year students for more than 30 years before his retirement in 2007.Professor Grey is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is the recipient of an honorary law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1971, he served as a clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.