Defining Legal Realism
The heart of the American Legal Realist movement was an effort to define and discredit Classical legal thought, and to offer in its place a more philosophically and politically enlightened jurisprudence. However, American Legal Realism expressed a set of sometimes self-contradictory tendencies rather than a clear body of tenets or a rigorous set of methodologies or propositions about legal theory. Consequently, the scope of the American Legal Realist movement has been difficult to define, and the most useful definition of American Legal Realism must be broad and generous.
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