Publication Date
1969
Abstract
IN 1916 Roscoe Pound delivered a famous address under the title, The Limits of Effective Legal Action.1 In that address Pound sought to demonstrate to his hearers that the law is not an all-purpose tool, that there are social problems it cannot solve, that the practice of calling out its rough engine in answer to every social alarm can not only damage society, but also may end by destroying the effectiveness of the law itself, even for those tasks for which it is eminently suited.
My theme has a considerable affinity with that pursued by Pound in 1916. Both have to do with cases where the law fails to be effective and with the reasons for its failures. At the same time there are important differences. Pound was concerned with situations where the law overreaches itself, where it attempts clumsily and unsuccessfully to force the shifting currents of life into its own rigid forms. I am concerned, on the other hand, with cases where the law projects itself, as it were, into a vacuum, with situations where the stream of life simply does not offer a sufficient substance to keep afloat even the most modest demands of the law.
Recommended Citation
Fuller, Lon L.
(1969)
"The Law's Precarious Hold on Life,"
Georgia Law Review: Vol. 3:
No.
3, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol3/iss3/3