Solum, Lawrence B. "Legal Theory Lexicon: Pragmatism." LEGAL THEORY BLOG December 28, 2008.

There was a time when those in the know, the cognoscenti of the legal academy, subscribed to what was widely know as the "theory of the month club." But something became quite clear as the years became decades: there were no winners in the debates between and among the advocates of big normative theories. Skirmishes and battles were won and lost, but there were no declarations of victory, surrenders, or peace treaties in the theory wars. So it was probably inevitable that there should be some sort of reaction--an antitheoretical counterrevolution. And there was--or rather, there were several reactions. One move was away from the normative altogether and towards positive law and economics and empirical legal studies. Another move was away from abstract theories and towards contextual approaches to feminist legal theory and critical race theory. And yet another move was to pragmatism--a term that resonates with both the heritage of American philosophical pragmatism (Pierce, James, and Dewey) and the appeal of common sense in its particularly lawyerly form--the preoccupation with the practical. This entry in the Legal Theory Lexicon provides an introduction to "legal pragmatism" for law students, especially first-year law students, with an interest in legal theory. As always, the Lexicon provides a "quick and dirty" introduction to a topic on which whole articles and books can and have been written. Legal pragmatism is related to (but distinct from) philosophical pragmatism. . . . Read the rest here: http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2008/12/legal-theory--6.html.