Richard Posner, Law-and-Economics Pioneer and Former Seventh Circuit Judge, Dies at 87
The University of Chicago Law School announced on November 11 that Richard Allen Posner, a senior lecturer at the school and a former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, died on November 10. He was 87. Posner joined the Law School faculty in 1969 and spent 36 years on the Seventh Circuit. He is widely considered the most influential legal scholar of all time and, during his time on the bench, was regarded as among the most powerful jurists outside the Supreme Court.
Born on January 11, 1939, in New York City, Posner graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School, where he finished first in his class in 1962 and served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., worked at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and in the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General, and taught at Stanford Law School before joining the University of Chicago in 1969. In 1978 he was named the university's Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law.
At Chicago, Posner became a pioneer of law and economics. His 1973 book, The Economic Analysis of Law, now in its ninth edition, applied the tools of economic theory to legal rules and institutions and is regarded as the field's seminal work. The Journal of Legal Studies has identified him as the most-cited legal scholar of the 20th century.
Appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Posner joined the Seventh Circuit in 1981, served as the court's chief judge from 1993 to 2000, and retired on September 2, 2017, having written some 3,300 opinions. On the bench he was a staunch advocate of legal pragmatism, known as a tough and often unrelenting questioner who disdained jargon-filled opinions.
Posner authored thousands of court opinions, hundreds of academic articles and nearly 40 books, on subjects ranging from antitrust and jurisprudence to aging and intelligence reform. After retiring, he remained a senior lecturer at the Law School and founded a center that provides legal assistance to litigants who represent themselves. According to court documents, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2018 and later withdrew from public life.
"There has never been a legal scholar quite as prolific, influential, and endlessly curious as Dick Posner," Law School Dean Adam Chilton said in a statement. "He was a giant whose influence on our legal system, the field of law and economics, and on our law school cannot be overstated." The Law School said it will publish a longer tribute in the coming days. Posner's son Eric Posner, also a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, confirmed his father's death to the media.
Reference: Federal Judicial Center
Source: University of Chicago Law School
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：理查德·波斯纳在哈佛大学发表演讲（资料照片）。chensiyuan 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。/ Image: Richard Posner speaking at Harvard University (file photo). Photo by chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
