Judicial Jeopardy: When Business Collides with the Courts

As part of a legal-political revolution in the U.S., courts tend to take over lawmaking functions of legislature, thereby acting against the best interests of business, charges Neely, a justice of West Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals. He examines the social influences that sparked Supreme Court activism and ""legal realism'' of the '60s, and blames low media profile for allowing the courts to exercise inordinate policy-making power in such areas as antitrust law, employee relations, environmental questions and product liability. The business establishment, he contends, must fight this tendency by lobbying judges as it does politicians since, as the author observes in irony-tinged fashion, many judges are in fact unsuccessful politicians. Neely's suggestions for improving treatment of business and the important supervision of government administrative agencies by the courts include the education of judges as to the social and economic consequences of their decisions through persuasive amicus curiae briefs and skillful presentation of legislative fact at judicial conferences and seminars. (November)