Realism survives only in a domesticated form, largely ignored in practice.

Evidence

A common saying is that “we are all Realists now,” but that is almost certainly false. Not only is the “all” an egregious exaggeration, but the form of Realism that survives turns out to be a highly domesticated one. Beliefs in the total determinacy of legal doctrine may have withered, but torts casebooks look less like Leon Green’s than might have been predicted half a century ago, with the typical modern book relying heavily on the traditional legal categories of tort doctrine. Constitutional law is still largely discussed, argued, and organized in substantial disregard of what the attitudinalists have rather firmly established, and any student who thinks that a strong Realist perspective will be rewarded on law school examinations is in for a nasty shock. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 265

Categorization

• XREF: Directly complicates the common ‘we are all Realists now’ trope; echoes how revolutionary theories often routinize into orthodoxy while losing their force, as with Marxism or psychoanalysis. — connects to: Legal realism failed for lack of methodological tools, not for lack of aims. — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 55

Related

• Legal Realism was method-agnostic, accepting lawyers’ intuition and social science alike. (similarity 0.86)
• Legal realism failed for lack of methodological tools, not for lack of aims. (similarity 0.86)
• American legal literature has always been rigorously practical, not theoretical (similarity 0.83)
• Pragmatism has revived but produced no new jurisprudence. (similarity 0.81)
• Parallel to and influenced by the pragmatists, legal realism comes on the scene, inspired by the work of Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Chipman Grey, and Benjamin Cardozo and realized in the work of… (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Legal realism failed for lack of methodological tools, not for lack of aims. #complicates (0.45) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 55