Saturday, December 28, 2013

Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason

Norman S. Poser (Brooklyn Law School).  Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013).

"Mr. Poser offers us a fascinating portrait. Awarded an earldom by George III, Mansfield was a typical 18th-century grandee, ruthlessly ambitious and casually venal. His career made him extremely rich, and his guarded political style often appeared unscrupulously calculated to accelerate his own advancement. But his mind was extraordinary, and he worked with legendary intensity. . . . Mansfield's judgments ingrained themselves into the legal culture of the English-speaking world. Modern rules governing the use of expert testimony, for instance, trace to Mansfield.  The U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Poser informs us, has cited Mansfield more than 300 times, on issues from defamation to parental rights." 
—Jeffrey Collins