Professor Robert Blomquist of Valparaiso Law (no that’s not him – that’s our own Christopher Columbus Langdell) has written “Thinking about Law and Creativity : On the 100 Most Creative Moments in American Law.”
From the abstract:
This article makes a bold new proposal—the articulation and ranking of America’s most creative legal moments—designed to energize and clarify our synoptic thinking about the nature of legal creativity. Starting with the opinions of numerous eminent legal historians on the most creative moments in Anglo-American law, we will explore the meaning of creative moments in law, and advance to analytically compare legal creativity with other kinds of creativity (corporate, artistic, military and rhetorical). Then we will heuristically entertain a ranking of the top hundred moments in American law and a justification for the ranking.
Coming in at number 17 (just above Oliver Wendell Holmes’ seminal monograph The Common Law) is Langdell’s case method for the study of law, invented right here at HLS, of course, complete with library as “laboratory.”
Blomquist is careful to call his list and ranking “tentative,” so feel free to disagree with him after perusing his rankings and the justifications that follow. But don’t even think of knocking Chris down below the top twenty…