I was privileged to be asked for a blurb on Jonathan Adler's edited volume Business and the Roberts Court
"It is commonplace for politicians, journalists, and the public at large to debate whether the Supreme Court is 'pro-business.' As the essays in this outstanding volume demonstrate, however, this is not just the wrong question-it is an inherently incoherent question. One cannot analyze Supreme Court decisions by simply totting up wins and losses from a single term, as many mindless end-of-term articles try doing. Instead, one must take a longer view over many terms. But even if one does so it is rarely obvious that specific decisions can be easily categorized as pro- or anti-business. Accordingly, the contributors to this volume bring to bear a much more sophisticated set of tools to analyze how the Supreme Court affects business. It will therefore require a place on the bookshelf of any lawyer, judge, or academic who cares about the relationship of law and business." -Stephen M. Bainbridge, William D. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
There's an interesting interview up on SCOTUSblog with Adler about the book. Money quote:
Question: What does it mean for the Supreme Court to be “pro-business”? What sort of definitional and conceptual parameters need to be recognized to begin to answer that question? Then again, are such labels more problematic than helpful?
Adler: That’s really the whole point of the book. In our age of 140-character assessments, there is a push to place a hashtag label on institutions and decisions. But such labels, like “pro-business,” often obscure as much as they reveal. As I discuss in the introduction, there are many different ways one could define “pro-business,” from a willingness to hear business-related cases to a commitment to doctrines that benefit business groups to actual favoritism. More importantly, if we really want to understand how the court approaches specific issues and resolves cases, we need to get beyond the labels and look at the content of the court’s work. Hopefully, this book makes a valuable contribution to that enterprise.
Adler also offers thoughts on how a Trump nominee will affect the court in business cases and various other aspects of the topic. Good read.
