Mark Kelman

Mark Kelman (born August 20, 1951) is jurist and vice dean of Stanford Law School. As a prominent legal scholar, he has applied social science methodologies, including economics and psychology, to the study of law. He is one of the most cited law professors.^[1] He is regarded as one of the co-founders of the critical legal studies movement and authored "A Guide to Critical Legal Studies." He is widely known for his influential^[2] 1978 critique of the Coase theorem,^[3] a core part of law and economics.

He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School.^[4]

Being a published novelist, Kelman is well aware of the role of narrative in forming a sense of personal identity^[5] - as also of the way narratives may be incriminating or exculpatory, depending on the time frame used.^[6]

Thus, for example, when viewed in a long enough time-frame, a criminal act which appears at first sight the result of individual responsibility may, Kelman suggests, be instead the deterministic result of socio-economic conditions.^[7]

Kelman argues that much in the law involves providing rational interpretative constructs that surround a non-rational core – what he terms 'rational rhetoricism'^[8] with the result that, in his words, "It is illuminating and disquieting to see that we are nonrationally constructing the legal world over and over again....".^[9]

Stanley Fish has proposed in rebuttal that such rhetorical constructs are in fact a necessary aspect of the human condition, and thus an inevitable facet of the legal world as well.^[10]

• Negative capability
• Roberto Unger

• Mark Kelman, What Followed Was Pure Lesley (1973)
• Mark Kelman, 'Choice & Utility' Wisconsin Law Review 1979 (1979)
• Mark Kelman, 'Interpretive Construction in the Substantive Criminal Law' Stanford Law Review (1981)

• Mark Kelman's biography at Stanford Law School