Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Michigan Law Review

Abstract

At the recent Inaugural Lecture of the University of Windsor's Distinguished Scholars Program on Access to Justice, my former law teaching colleague, Professor Joseph Vining, delivered a speech entitled Justice, Bureaucracy, and Legal Method. Because, in my view, Professor Vining's address raised some disturbing questions, and some seriously misguided suggestions, about the growth of bureaucracy in the courts and the delivery of justice, I believe that a response is appropriate. With all due respect to the opinions of my good friend, I must say at the outset that I find many of the concerns expressed by Professor Vining to be much ado about nothing. I reject his thesis for three central reasons. First, many of Professor Vining's factual assumptions about the process at work are wrong. I fear that Professor Vining has relied too heavily on information gained from former law clerks, not from judges. Second, I strongly dispute Professor Vining's conclusion that judicial decisions today are no longer the products of judges' thinking. Whatever effect the burgeoning judicial bureaucracy has had, I surely do not believe that it has made federal judges mere extensions of their staffs. Third, I do not believe that the Supreme Court's opinions have lost their authority. Whether or not the decisions are the subject of criticism, it remains clear that the Supreme Court's written opinions are the authoritative law of the land.

First Page

259

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2307/1288049

Volume

80

Publication Date

1981

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