Llewellyn (22 mai 1893 – 13 févr. 1962)

Description:

Karl Nickerson Llewellyn (May 22, 1893 – February 13, 1962) was a prominent American jurisprudential scholar associated with the school of legal realism. The Journal of Legal Studies has identified Llewellyn as one of the twenty most cited American legal scholars of the 20th century.[1]

BIOGRAPHY
Karl Llewellyn was born on May 22, 1893, in Seattle, but grew up in Brooklyn. He attended Yale College and Yale Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He studied under Arthur Linton Corbin, whose influence on him was profound.

Llewellyn was studying abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris when World 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 the First Battle of Ypres.[2] For his actions, he was promoted to sergeant and decorated with the Iron Cross, 2nd class. After spending ten weeks in a German hospital at Nürtingen, 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 the United States Army, but was rejected because he had fought on the German side.

Llewellyn joined the Columbia Law School faculty in 1925, where he remained until 1951, when he was appointed professor of the University of Chicago Law School. While at Columbia, Llewellyn became one of the major legal scholars of his day. He was a major proponent of legal realism. He also served as principal drafter of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).

Llewellyn married another professor and UCC drafter, Soia Mentschikoff. She went on to become dean of University of Miami School of Law.

Llewellyn died in Chicago of a heart attack on February 13, 1962.

LEGAL REALISM
Compared with traditional jurisprudence, known as legal formalism, Llewellyn and the legal realists proposed that the facts and outcomes of specific cases comprised 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 what judges, lawyers, and law 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.[3]


Carreira Acadêmica
Em 1915 retornou a Yale, onde ingressou para a Faculdade de Direito, e foi editor chefe do jornal Yale Law Journal, e também escreveu vários artigos. Se formou em 1918 magna cum laude, passou o exame do Bar (ordem dos advogados) de Connecticut, e concluiu seu doutorado em direito no ano de 1920. No mesmo ano, buscando adquirir mais experiência prática como advogado antes de focar em uma carreira acadêmica, começou a trabalhar no departamento jurídico do National City Bank (hoje Citibank) em Nova Iorque. Em 1923, após voltar a dar aulas em Yale e abandonar a carreira de advogado, Llewellyn foi transferido para a Universidade de Columbia, onde sua esposa estava concluindo seus estudos. Ficou em Columbia até 1951, e neste tempo escreveu vários livros importantes, como o The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study (1931), uma adaptação de uma série de aulas e palestras que ele escreveu entre 1929-1930, quando foi o primeiro professor de jurisprudência da universidade de Columbia. Escreveu também, no mesmo ano, o livro que seria referência em direito empresarial, Cases and Materials on the Law of Sales.[3]

Realismo Jurídico
As teorias de realismo jurídico de Llewellyn, apresentadas no The Bramble Bush, lhe trouxeram bastante atenção. Llewellyn declarou que opiniões jurídicas deveriam ser examinadas para ver o quanto os juízes são influenciados fatores que podem não ter relação com a lei. Ele escreveu que, “a longo prazo, para a re-estruturação em larga escala e crescimento de doutrinas e de nossas instituições jurídicas, … as mudanças quase despercebidas, …são mais significativas do que os casos históricos marcantes”. Logo, segundo ele, os advogados deveriam ser treinados para formularem argumentos persuasivos que enfatizem os fatores particulares de um caso, já que esses fatos, às vezes, tem um efeito mais importante no resultado do que a lei aplicável. Os críticos de suas teorias argumentavam que, na prática, o realismo jurídico seria demasiado difícil para ser aplicado. Segundo eles, sob o sistema de jurisprudência de um advogado poderia ser requerido a se dedicar de uma forma ridícula para argumentar um caso corretamente, na tentativa de aprender todos os possíveis fatores que poderiam influenciar seus casos. Como resultado, as teorias de realismo jurídico de Llewellyn nunca substituíram a visão do direito como um conjunto de regras bem-definidas a serem aplicadas à casa situação específica.[2]

Ajouté au bande de temps:

Date:

Les images: