Richard Allen Posner

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American federal judge and legal scholar (born 1939)

Richard Allen Posner (/ˈpoʊznər/ ; born January 11, 1939) is an American legal scholar and retired United States circuit judge who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. Posner was appointed by President Ronald Reagan , and he served as the chief judge of the Seventh Circuit from 1993 to 2000. A former law professor at the University of Chicago , Posner was identified in _The Journal of Legal Studies _ as the most-cited legal scholar of the 20th century. As of 2021, he is also the most-cited American legal scholar of all time. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential legal scholars in the United States.

Posner is known for his scholarly range and for writing on topics outside of law. In his various writings and books, he has addressed animal rights , feminism , drug prohibition , same-sex marriage , Keynesian economics , law and literature , and academic moral philosophy , among other subjects.

Posner is the author of nearly 40 books on jurisprudence , law and economics , antitrust law , and several other topics, such as Economic Analysis of Law, The Economics of Justice, The Problems of Jurisprudence, _Sex and Reason _, Law, Pragmatism and Democracy, and The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy. Posner has generally been identified as being politically conservative; towards the end of his tenure on the bench, however, he distanced himself from the positions of the Republican Party, authoring more liberal rulings involving same-sex marriage and abortion .

In _A Failure of Capitalism _, he writes that the 2008 financial crisis caused him to question the rational-choice , _laissez-faire _ economic model that lies at the heart of his law and economics theory.

Early life and education

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Richard Allen Posner was born on January 11, 1939, in New York City, to Blanche (Hofrichter) and Max Posner.

His father's family were of Romanian Jewish descent, and his mother's family were Ashkenazi Jews from Galicia in the Austrian Empire .

After high school, Posner studied English literature at Yale University , graduating in 1959 with a B.A. , _summa cum laude _, and membership in Phi Beta Kappa . He then attended Harvard Law School , where he was president of the _Harvard Law Review _. He graduated in 1962 ranked first in his class with an LL.B. , magna cum laude.

Legal career

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After law school, Posner was a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 to 1963. He then served as an attorney-advisor to Commissioner Philip Elman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); he would later argue that the FTC ought to be abolished. Posner went on to work in the Office of the Solicitor General in the United States Department of Justice , under Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall .

In 1968, Posner accepted a position teaching at Stanford Law School . In 1969, Posner moved to the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School . He was a founding editor of _The Journal of Legal Studies _ in 1972.

On October 27, 1981, Posner was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated by Judge Philip Willis Tone . Posner was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 24, 1981, and received his commission on December 1, 1981. He served as Chief Judge of that court from 1993 to 2000 but remained a part-time senior lecturer at the University of Chicago .

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In his decision in the 1997 case _State Oil Co. v. Khan _, Posner wrote that a ruling 1968 antitrust precedent set by the Supreme Court was "moth-eaten", "wobbly", and "unsound". Nevertheless, he abided by the previous decision in his ruling. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and overturned the 1968 ruling unanimously; Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the opinion and spoke positively of both Posner's criticism and his decision to abide by the ruling until the Court decided to change it.

Tort law

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In U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Jadranska Slobodna Plovidba, 683 F.2d 1022 (7th Cir. 1982), Posner revived Learned Hand's economic efficiency theory of negligence law .

In _[Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Harbor_Belt_Railroad_Co._v._American_Cyanamid_Co. "Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. …