Volume 1962, Issue 1 (1962) Symposium: Llewellyn’s The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals

This Symposium was in the press when Professor Llewellyn died. It has been decided to leave it unchanged, since it is our feeling that the most suitable memorial for a man like him is a collection of articles which treat his ideas as living and forceful—to be agreed with or not, but in any event to be thought about. None of the articles makes a real effort to evaluate finally his work and influence, and in a way this seems preferable, since such an evaluation tends to indicate that the influence is over, or so attenuated as not to be of any present importance. It is clear enough, as state after state enacts the Commercial Code, and as the reviews of The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals appear, that this is not the case with Karl Llewellyn. The evident vitality of his work is, it seems to us, the sort of tribute he would have preferred.