Law Porn, Now a Topic of Long-Form Commentary

"'Law porn' is an epithet that refers to professional-looking, glossy publications commissioned by law schools to tout their own achievements and to create the impression of a vibrant, intellectual culture" writes Doug Litowitz in Law Porn and Its Discontents, 6 The crit: a critical legal studies journal 15 (Winter 2012).

[M]y concern is not with the truth or falsity of law porn, but rather with its meaning for the legal academy. What troubles me–and this is the major point of this essay–is that most of the claims in law porn are neither true nor false, but rather a kind of magical speech in which saying something is an attempt to make it come true. In the technical terminology of the linguist, law porn conflates the indicative grammatical mood (statements about what is or isn’t the case) with the optative mood (statements about what is hoped to be the case). Rather than reporting on some antecedent truth, law porn is an attempt to create a truth a posteriori. Law porn is not news; it is mythology.

Litowitz starts off the conclusion of his recommended essay with "[w]hatever our opinions of ‘real porn,’ at least it is sought by a consumer, for his own gratification, to be viewed in private. The reverse is true for law—it is intended to benefit the sender, and it is public." [JH]