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Posner, Richard (1939–)

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Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy
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Introduction

The most prominent figure in the field of law and economics and the most cited legal scholar of the twentieth century, Richard Posner has gained fame for a wide array of contributions to jurisprudence and the law. He gained fame around the turn of the century as the appointed mediator in the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit and is a leading expert in the fields of tort, technology, and antitrust law, in addition to being a major legal philosopher. President Reagan appointed him to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Chicago) where he spent 36 years as a Federal Judge and issued over 3000 opinions. Posner’s prestige in antitrust is such that when he criticized a US Supreme Court ruling overriding one of his decisions, the Court unanimously reversed itself, quoting him extensively in the opinion. And although apparently self-taught in economics, he has delivered the prestigious Richard T. Ely Lecture to the American Economic Association and published in top rank...

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Autobiographical comments in this section from Posner, R. Reflections on Judging

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Correspondence to I. Larry Udell .

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Udell, I.L. (2020). Posner, Richard (1939–). In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_297-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_297-1

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