What is Law

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Passage

What is “law”? By what processes do judges arrive at opinions, those documents that justify their belief that the “law” dictates a conclusion one way or the other? These are among the oldest questions in jurisprudence, debate about which has traditionally been dominated by representatives of two schools of thought: proponents of who see law solely as embodying the commands of a society’s ruling authority.

Since the early 1970s, these familiar questions have received some new and surprising answers in the legal academy. This novelty is in part a consequence of the increasing influence there of academic disciplines and intellectual traditions previously unconnected with the study of law. Perhaps the most influential have been the answers given legitimate authority, but who are intent on preserving the privileges of their race, class, or gender.

In the mid-1970s, James Boyd White began to articulate yet another interdisciplinary response to the traditional questions, and in so doing spawned what is now known as the Law and Literature movement. White has insisted that law, particularly as it is interpreted in judicial opinions, should be understood as an essentially literary each judicial opinion attempts in its own way to promote a particular political or ethical value.

In the recent Justice as Translation, White argues that opinion-writing should be regarded as an act of “translation,” and judges as “translators.” As such, judges find themselves mediating between the authoritative legal text and the pressing legal problem that demands resolution. A judge must essentially “re-constitute” that text by fashioning a new and aspirations of the world in which the new legal problem has arisen.

What this question is testing

Inference

Your task

Find what must be true based on what the passage or stimulus states.

Common trap

Answers that are plausible or likely but not actually guaranteed by the text.

Winning move

Keep only the choice the statements fully support — eliminate anything that requires an extra assumption.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

13.

Which one of the following can be inferred from the passage about the academic study of jurisprudence

Answer choices

Outside Support Window4% picked this
It was concerned primarily with codifying and maintaining the privileges
Outside Support Window: elites' privileges Too Strong: primarily The concept of 'elites' is associated with CLS, which is one of the new schools of thought that has arisen since the 1970s. We might say, "well wait --- legal positivists were big prior to the 1970s and they saw law as embodying the commands of a society's ruling authority." The ruling authority is probably meant to mean more like the sovereign government, not the upper crust of rich people. And legal positivists aren't talking about maintaining the "privileges" of the ruling authority. And legal positivism can't be said to be the primary concern of pre-1970 thinking because natural law was also dominant and had nothing to do with elite privilege.
4%
Semi-Contradicted3% picked this
It rejected theories that interpreted law as an expression of a
One of the big theories pre-1970 was legal positivism, which interpreted law as "embodying the commands of a society's ruling authority". That sounds like law was an expression of that group's power. Thus, pre-1970 thinking wasn't rejecting that sort of theory. One of the two dominant theories in pre-1970 thinking seems to be one of that sort of theory.
3%
Contradicted10% picked this
It seldom focused on how and by what authority judges arrived
We know from the first three sentences of the passage that one of the big questions that still lingered pre 1970s was "by what processes do judges arrive at opinions"? Both natural law and legal positivism were attempts to answer that question.
10%
Too Strong: primarily economic11% picked this
It was concerned primarily with the study of law as an economic
Natural law, one of the two dominant schools of thought pre-1970, saw law as intertwined with a moral order. But it didn't have anything to do with economics and we wouldn't say that "what natural law was concerned with = what pre-1970 academic study was primarily concerned with". The other dominant theory, legal positivism, doesn't seem to have anything to do with morality or economics. The inclusion of "economic" matters is one of the new schools of thought (Law and Economics) that has emerged since 1970.
11%
Correct72% picked this
It was not concerned with such disciplines as anthropology
Why this is right
This pulls from our 3rd supporting nugget: - they were grappling with the age-old questions - natural law and legal positivism were the dominant schools of thought - there was less influence from academic disciplines that are unconnected with law We're told that since the early 1970s, there have been new answers to the age old questions because of the increasing influence of academic disciplines and intellectual traditions previously unconnected with the study of law. CLS drew on arguments developed in anthropology, sociology, and history. We can use our common sense to put these pieces of text together and think that "anthropology and sociology" are examples of academic disciplines that increasingly influenced legal thinking since the early 1970s, but were previously unconnected with the study of law.
Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
72%

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