Richard Posner Discusses His New Book 'Reflections on Judging' on NPR
Richard Posner Reflects 'On Judging'
SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Most federal judges don't write books. They've got day jobs. They often can't talk about their most interesting cases and they're often not eager to be outspoken, except from the bench. But Richard Posner, a sitting judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School has written over 40 books, most on the law, but also on economics, literature, history and aging.
His latest book is reflections on judging. He was appointed to the bench in 1981 by President Reagan and we asked Judge Posner, who was in his chambers in Chicago, if he would be likely to be confirmed or even appointed a federal judge today.
JUDGE RICHARD POSNER: No. I'd be too controversial. Of course I've been a judge now for 31 years, almost 32 years, so in the course of that time I've written - I've actually written almost 3,000 traditional opinions, so it would be easy for someone to, you know, pick out opinions that he didn't like or, you know, I've written a lot of non-judicial stuff; academic, and, you know, blogs and...
SIMON: Yeah.
POSNER: Book reviews and so on, so there would be plenty of ammunition.
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