SOURCE: Kornstein, Daniel J. “A Practicing Lawyer Looks Back on Law and Literature.” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 10, no. 2 (winter 1998): 117-19.

In the following essay, Kornstein presents a brief summary of literature and law study over the past two decades, emphasizing that the future of the discipline lies in engaging the interest of actual practitioners of law.

Law and Literature has much to be proud of. In two decades or so, it has grown from an abstract idea to a contemporary school of jurisprudence. It has started to permeate the legal consciousness. It is taught in colleges as well as law schools. It has produced an expanding body of writing that is probing, controversial, and fascinating. It has drawn people to many conferences and symposia, some of them international. Special journals devoted to Law and Literature, such as this one, have sprouted up and continue to flourish...