Karl Llewellyn | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Karl Nickerson Llewellyn (1893-05-22)May 22, 1893 Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Died | February 13, 1962(1962-02-13) (aged 68) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Yale University (LLB,JD) University of Lausanne |
| Influences | Arthur L. Corbin,Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld |
| Academic work | |
| School or tradition | Legal realism |
| Institutions | Columbia Law School University of Chicago Law School |
| Notable works | The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study (1930) |
Karl Nickerson Llewellyn (May 22, 1893 – February 13, 1962) was an American jurisprudential scholar associated with the school oflegal realism.The Journal of Legal Studies has identified Llewellyn as one of the twenty most cited American legal scholars of the 20th century.[1]
Karl Llewellyn was born on May 22, 1893, inSeattle but grew up inBrooklyn. He was the son of William Henry Llewellyn, a businessman of Welsh ancestry, and Janet George, a passionatesuffragette andprohibitionist ofCongregationalist conviction.[2] He attendedBoys High School. At the age of sixteen he was sent to study in Germany, at theRealgymnasium ofSchwerin, where he spent three years and passed hisAbitur (school-leaving examination) in the spring of 1911; he learned to speak an excellent German and was able later in life to publish in that language.[2][3] After having attended theUniversity of Lausanne for a brief time, in September 1911 he enteredYale College and in 1915Yale Law School, earning anLL.B. in 1918 and aJ.D. in 1920. He was elected to the editorial board of theYale Law Journal in 1916 and graduated top of his class in 1918magna cum laude.[2][4] At Yale he got acquainted with two prominent law professors and key figures of the incipientlegal realism movement,Arthur L. Corbin andWesley N. Hohfeld, whose influence on him was profound.[5]
Llewellyn was studying abroad at theSorbonne in Paris whenWorld War I broke out in 1914. He was sympathetic to the German cause and traveled to Germany to enlist in the German army, but his refusal to renounce his American citizenship made him ineligible. He was allowed to fight with the 78th Prussian Infantry Regiment and was injured at theFirst Battle of Ypres.[6] For his actions, he was promoted to sergeant and decorated with theIron Cross, 2nd class. After spending ten weeks in a German hospital atNürtingen and having his petition to enlist without swearing allegiance to Germany turned down, Llewellyn returned to the United States and to his studies at Yale in March 1915. After the United States entered the war, Llewellyn attempted to enlist in theUnited States Army but was rejected because he had fought on the German side.[7]
He joined theColumbia Law School faculty in 1925, where he remained until 1951, when he was appointed professor of theUniversity of Chicago Law School. While at Columbia, Llewellyn became one of the major legal scholars of his day. He was a major proponent oflegal realism. He also served as principal drafter of theUniform Commercial Code (UCC).
Llewellyn married his former studentSoia Mentschikoff, who had become a law professor and was also a UCC drafter. She also accepted a teaching post at Chicago and later became dean ofUniversity of Miami School of Law.[8]
Llewellyn died inChicago of a heart attack on February 13, 1962.
Compared with traditionaljurisprudence, known aslegal formalism, Llewellyn and the legal realists proposed that the facts and outcomes of specific cases composed the law, rather than logical reasoning from legal rules. They argued that law is not a deductive science. Llewellyn epitomized the realist view when he wrote that whatjudges,lawyers, andlaw enforcement officers "do about disputes is, to my mind, the law itself" (Bramble Bush, p. 3).
As one of the founders of the U.S. legal realism movement, he believed that the law is little more than putty in the hands of a judge who is able to shape the outcome of a case based on personal biases.[9]
