Morton J. Horwitz (born 1938) is an American

legal historian Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and operates in the wider context of social history. Certain jurists and histo ...

and

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

. The recent past dean of Harvard Law School,

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination ...

, relates that during her time at

law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...

, students often

nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

d him as "Mort the Tort" since he taught the first-year subject

Tort A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with cri ...

Career

Horwitz obtained an A.B. from the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

(1959), an A.M. and Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

(1962 and 1964), and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School (1967). He became an associate professor of law at Harvard Law School in 1970 and gained

tenure Tenure is a type of academic appointment that protects its holder from being fired or laid off except for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Academic tenure originated in the United ...

as a full professor in 1974. In 1981, he was appointed the

Charles Warren Sir Charles Warren (7 February 1840 – 21 January 1927) was a British Army officer of the Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of the Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of the Temple Mount. Much of his military ...

Professor of American Legal History.

Transformation work

His first book, ''The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860'', was published in 1977, and is widely regarded as one of the most important books in modern American legal

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

. It won the Bancroft Prize, the preeminent prize in American history in the United States. A product of its time, this book sought to give a "thick description" (à la

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades&n ...

) of the transformation of American law in the period, without appealing to "covering laws" (à la

Carl Gustav Hempel Carl Gustav "Peter" Hempel (; ; January 8, 1905 – November 9, 1997) was a German writer, philosopher, logician, and epistemologist. He was a major figure in Logical positivism, logical empiricism, a 20th-century movement in the philosophy ...

). The book was conceived as an attack on the so-called "Consensus School" of American Legal History, which had dominated the field of

Legal History Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and operates in the wider context of social history. Certain jurists and his ...

in the 1950s and minimized the role of

class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...

dimensions in American legal history. The main argument of his book is that in the first half of the 19th century, many

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

s self-consciously allied themselves with a rapidly growing class of mercantile

capitalists Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by a n ...

and promoted a series of legal rules which favored those capitalists. In ''The Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy'' (1992), the sequel to his first book, Horwitz focused on the critics of the system which he described in his first book, especially Oliver Wendell Holmes,

Roscoe Pound Nathan Roscoe Pound (October 27, 1870 – June 28, 1964) was an American legal scholar and educator. He served as dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law from 1903 to 1911 and was dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936. He was a ...

, and

Karl Llewellyn Karl Nickerson Llewellyn (May 22, 1893 – February 13, 1962) was an 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 ...

. He frames this change in the law as a debate between " Legal Formalists" and " Legal Realists". He argues that in this period, the victors from his first book tried to present the current state of the law as the natural and necessary consequence of the application of the rules of

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

. In their critique of Legal Formalism, the Legal Realists argued that the inductive and analogical model applied by the Legal Formalists was logically incoherent; that all law was ultimately a power relationship; and that, therefore, law was basically a form of public policy which should be decided on

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

grounds rather than by recourse to abstract categories like "

". In 1998, Horwitz published his third book, an

encomium ''Encomium'' (: ''encomia'') is a Latin word deriving from the Ancient Greek ''enkomion'' (), meaning "the praise of a person or thing." Another Latin equivalent is '' laudatio'', a speech in praise of someone or something. Originally was the ...

on the

Warren Court The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1953 to 1969 when Earl Warren served as the chief justice. The Warren Court is often considered the most liberal court in U.S. history. The Warren Cou ...

entitled ''The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice''.

External links

Official faculty biographyNPR Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Horwitz, Morton 1938 births Living people American legal writers American legal scholars City College of New York alumni Harvard Law School alumni Harvard Law School faculty American legal historians Bancroft Prize winners

Career

Transformation work

See also

External links