Divergent Paths

[Posner’s] caustic wit and brutal candidness are on fine display in [his] latest book, a trenchant dissection of both the academy and the judiciary’s flaws…Equal parts edifying and entertaining, Divergent Paths is surely the funniest book you will ever read by a sitting federal judge. – Mark Joseph Stern * Slate *The great strength of Divergent Paths—and the principal reason it should command the attention of readers—is Posner’s candid, compelling and accessible assault on legal formalism (and its kissing cousins, originalism, textualism, literalism, and canons of construction), the dominant method used by federal judges. – Glenn C. Altschuler * Huffington Post *Divergent Paths should certainly be of considerable interest to anyone interested in public policy and academic issues. And anyone interested in the American legal system, at any and all its levels (but especially that of the federal courts), should find themselves very entertained and hopefully helpfully provoked by Posner’s book. – M. A. Orthofer * Complete Review *Divergent Paths is a valuable contribution to debates over the future of federal courts and law schools alike…Posner is, as always, uniformly sensible and frequently brilliant. – Kermit Roosevelt * New York Times Book Review *

Richard A. Posner retired as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2017. He was previously a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.