“There has never been a legal scholar quite as prolific, influential, and endlessly curious as Dick Posner,” said Law School Dean Adam Chilton.
Richard Allen Posner died in Chicago on November 10 at the age of 87, according to the University of Chicago Law School. He was a pioneering scholar of law and economics and former federal appellate judge whose towering output reshaped American jurisprudence.
University of Chicago Law School Dean Adam Chilton described him as a giant whose immense impact on the legal system, the academic discipline of law and economics, and the law school itself can never be overstated. David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, expressed sorrow upon hearing the news, stating that he was honored to call the jurist a friend.
I am so, so sorry to learn of the death of Judge Richard Posner. I was honored to call him a friend. Dick Posner, rest in peace. (I'll have much more to say about Judge Posner in a future post.) https://t.co/nrJpYaLjXh
Posner authored roughly 3,300 judicial opinions during a nearly 36-year tenure on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Beyond the bench, he produced more than 50 books and hundreds of articles, cementing his status as the most cited legal scholar of the latter half of the 20th century.
Statistical accounts said that he published around 900 journal articles, averaging roughly 14.7 articles per year over a span of 62 years.
Born in New York in 1939, Posner earned an undergraduate degree in English from Yale University in 1959 and graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School in 1962, as detailed in The Seattle Times.
Early in his career, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. and served as an assistant to U.S. Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall. He joined the University of Chicago Law School faculty in 1969. In 1978, he was named the institution’s Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law, a title he held until his appointment to the federal bench.
In 1973, Posner published The Economic Analysis of Law, a seminal text that brought the tools of economic theory to bear on legal rules and institutions. The book helped establish law and economics as a dominant academic discipline, influencing generations of students and scholars.
He also collaborated with Elisabeth Landes on influential research, including a study arguing that government regulation of adoption fostered an artificial black market by interfering with standard market principles of supply and demand.
President Ronald Reagan appointed Posner to the Seventh Circuit in 1981. He served as the court’s chief judge from 1993 to 2000 and developed a reputation for legal pragmatism, sharp questioning, and a disdain for dense legalese. Colleagues remembered him off the bench as witty and ironic.
While often viewed as a conservative intellectual, Posner frequently broke with orthodox legal movements. He authored a prominent ruling striking down same-sex marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin.
He also engaged in public intellectual clashes with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia over originalism, publishing a critical review in The New Republic that accused Scalia of abandoning textualist principles when striking down a Washington, D.C., handgun ban by relying heavily on underlying legislative history.
Posner abruptly retired from the bench in September 2017.
“Posner was a great intellect and a great judge,” David Boies told Above the Law. “He cared about the law, and he cared about justice.” He served nearly 36 years on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
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