The federal judiciary has lost a giant. Judge Richard A. Posner died this week at the age of 87.
Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Judge Posner served for nearly 36 years on the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. His contribution to American law is staggering. Over his extraordinary career, he authored some 3,300 judicial opinions, hundreds of scholarly articles, and over 40 books.
These writings fundamentally altered the way lawyers and judges think about the law. Judge Posner believed, for example, that judges should understand the world their decisions govern. As a professor at the University of Chicago, he helped pioneer the field of law and economics, which applies economic principles to legal questions. His seminal 1973 treatise, Economic Analysis of Law, taught generations of lawyers to examine how legal rules influence human behavior by allocating costs and creating incentives. He also encouraged judges to consider how their rulings would shape the future decision-making of individuals and institutions across our society.
But Judge Posner didn’t just change how judges like me think about the law; he also challenged us to think differently about our place in American public life.
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