Lawrence M. Solan

Brooklyn Law School

Don Forchelli Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
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Chronology

False Consensus Bias in Contract Interpretation (with Terri Rosenblatt and Daniel Osherson), 108 Columbia L. Rev. 1268 (2008)

Psychologists call the propensity to believe that one’s views are the normal views even when...

The Uneasy Relationship Between Science and Law: An Essay and Introduction [Symposium: A Cross-Disciplinary Look at Scientific Truth] (with Margaret A. Berger), Brooklyn Law Review (2008)

Tax Shelters and the Code: Navigating Between Text and Intent (with Steven A. Dean), 26 Va. Tax Rev. 879 (2007)

Contract as Agreement, 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 353 (2007)

Review, Roger Shuy, Creating Language Crimes, 11 Theoretical Criminology 126 (2007)

La Lingúística Forense en los Tribunales Norteamericanos (with Peter M. Tiersma), Lingüística Forense, Lengua y Derecho: Conceptos, Metodos y Aplicaciones (2006)

Where Does Blaming Come From?, 71 Brook. L. Rev. 939 (2006)

Language and Law: Definitions in Law, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2005)

Private Langauge, Public Laws: The Central Role of Legislative Intent in Statutory Interpretation, 93 Geo. L.J 427 (2005)

For decades, the use of “legislative intent” in statutory interpretation has been attacked both by...

Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice (with Peter Tiersma) (2005)

The New Textualists’ New Text [Symposium: Statutory Interpretation], 38 Loy. L. Rev. 2027 (2005)

Vagueness and Ambiguity in Legal Interpretation , Vagueness in Normative Texts (2005)

Author Identification in American Courts (with P. Tiersma), 25 Applied Linguistics 448 (2004)

Cops and Robbers: Selective Literalism in American Criminal Law (with P. Tiersma), 38 Law & Soc’y. Rev. 229 (2004)

Pernicious Ambiguity in Contracts and Statutes [Symposium: “Law &”: Philosophical, Psychological, Linguistic and Biological Perspectives on Legal Scholarship], 79 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 859 (2004)

Falling on Deaf Ears: Scientists Say that Earwitnesses are Unreliable. Why aren’t Courts Listening? (with P. Tiersma), 2 Legal Aff. 71 (2003)

Wrist Slaps are No Deterrent, Nat’l L.J (2003)

Presidents and Scandals: Bush and Uranium, Clinton and Sex, Reagan and Iran-contra: What Do They Have in Common?, MSNBC News (2003)

Catch Phrase [Commentary] (with P. M. Tiersma), Phila. Inq. (2003)

Pointing Fingers, MSNBC.com Opinons (2003)

Cognitive Foundations of the Impulse to Blame [Symposium: Responsibility and Blame: Psychological and Legal Perspectives], 68 Brook. L. Rev. 1003 (2003)

Finding Ordinary Meaning in the Dictionary , Language and Law: Proceedings of a Conference (2003)

Forum: Forensic Science, No Consensus (with P. M. Tiersma), Issues in Sci. & Tech. (2003)

Hearing Voices: Speaker Identification in Court (with P. Tiersma), 54 Hastings L.J. 373 (2003)

Introduction [Symposium: Responsibility and Blame: Psychological & Legal Perspectives], 68 Brook. L. Rev. 925 (2003)

Jurors as Statutory Interpreters [Symposium: The Jury at a Crossroads: The American Experience, 78 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 1281 (2003)

Statutory Inflation and Institutional Choice, 44 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 2209 (2003)

Introduction [Symposium: Cognitive Legal Studies: Categorization and Imagination in the Mind of Law], 67 Brook. L. Rev. 941 (2002)

Ordinary Meaning in Legal Interpretation (reprinted in Ordinary and Legal Language (B. Pozzo ed. 2005)), Pohjois-Suomen Tuomarikoulu (2002)

Should Criminal Statutes Be Interpreted Dynamically?, Issues in Legal Scholarship (2002)

Eskridge's theory of dynamic statutory interpretation focuses largely on regulatory statutes and civil cases, but...

The Clinton Scandal: Some Lessons from Linguistics , Language in the Legal Process (2002)

The Linguist on the Witness Stand: Forensic Linguistics in American Courts (with P. Tiersma), 78 Language 221 (2002)

Think It Through: a Constitutional Scholar Explains Why Congress Is Wise to Go Slow on Anti-Terror Laws That Would Erode Individual Rights, MSNBC.com Opinions (2001)

Causation, Contribution and Legal Liability: An Empirical Study (with J. Darley), 64 Law & Contemp. Probs. 265 (2001)

Convicting the Innocent Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Some Lessons About Jury Instructions from the Sheppard Case, 49 Clev. St. L. Rev. 465 (2001)

Introduction [Symposium: The Jury in the 21st Century: An Interdisciplinary Conference] (with Susan N. Herman), 66 Brook. L. Rev. 971 (2001)

Perjury and Impeachment: The Rule of Law or the Rule of Lawyers? , Aftermath: The Clinton Impeachment and the Presidency in the Age of Political Spectacle (2001)

The Written Contract as Safe Harbor for Dishonest Conduct [Symposium: Theory Informs Business Practice], 77 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 87 (2001)

Why Laws Work Pretty Well, But Not Great: Words and Rules in Legal Interpretation (reviewing Steven Pinker, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (1999)), 26 Law & Soc. Inquiry 243 (2001)

Let Us Never Forget Our Humanity: Reflections on Justice Stewart Pollock, 31 Rutgers L.J. 741 (2000)

Un Effect du Principe C Chez l'Enfant Francophone (with H. Goodluck), 45 Can. J. Linguistics 49 (2000)

A Cinderella Affidavit: Thriller and Biting Commentary on Legal System (reviewing Michael Frederickson, Cinderella Affidavit), N.J. L.J. (1999)

Can the Legal System Use Experts on Meaning (reprinted in 49 Def. L.J. 775 (2000)), 66 Tenn. L. Rev. 1167 (1999)

Refocusing the Burden of Proof in Criminal Cases: Some Doubt About Reasonable Doubt, 78 Tex. L. Rev. 105 (1999)

Fault Lies Not Only in Starr But in Law, Nat'l L.J. (1998)

Law, Language and Lenity, 40 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 57 (1998)

Linguistic Experts as Semantic Tour Guides, 5 Forensic Linguistics 87 (1998)

Book Review (reviewing Bernard S. Jackson, Making Sense in Law (1995)), 4 Forensic Linguistics 305 (1997)

Learning our Limits: The Decline of Textualism in Statutory Cases, 1997 Wis. L. Rev. 235 (1997)

Judicial Decisions and Linguistic Analysis: Is There a Linguist in the Court? [Northwestern University / Washington University Law and Linguistics Conference: What is Meaning in a Legal Text?], 73 Wash. U. L.Q. 1069 (1995)

Chomsky and Cardozo: Linguistics and the Law , Noam Chomsky: Critical Assessments (1994)

When All is Lost: Why it is Difficult for Judges to Write About Concepts, 1 Graven Images 154 (1994)

The Language of Judges (1993)

When Judges Use the Dictionary, 68 Am. Speech 50 (1993)

Does the Legal System Need Experts in English Syntax, The Language Scientist as Expert in the Legal Setting (1990)

Linguistic Principles as the Rule of Law , Langue et droit -- Language and Law (1989)

Parameter Setting and the Development of Pronouns and Reflexives , Parameter Setting (1987)

A Comparison of Null and Pronoun Anaphora in First Language Acquisition Studies in the Acquisition of Anaphora: Defining the Constraints , ) (with B. Lust, S. Flynn, C. Cross, and E. Schuetz), Studies in the Acquisition of Anaphora: Defining the Constraints (1986)

Language Acquisition Data and the Theory of Markedness: Evidence from Spanish , Markedness (1986)

Focus and Levels of Representation, 15 Linguistic Inquiry 174 (1984)

Pronominal Reference: Child Language and the Theory of Grammar (1983)

A Metrical Analysis of Spanish Stress in (trans. & reprinted as "Analisis Métrico del Acento Español," in Juana Gil (ed.), Panorama de la Fonología Español Actual (2000)), Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (1981)

Fixing Parameters: Language Acquisition and Language Variation , Markedness and Learnability (1981)

The Acquisition of Structural Restrictions on Anaphora, Language Acquistion and Linguistic Theory (1981)

Contrastive Stress and Children’s Interpretation of Pronouns, 23 J. of Speech & Hearing Res. 688 (1980)

A Reevaluation of the Basic Operations Hypothesis (with H. Goodluck), 7 Cognition 85 (1979)

The Acquisition of Tough Movement , Studies in First and Second Language Acquisition (1979)

Children’s Use of Syntactic Structure in Interpreting Relative Clauses (with T. Roeper), Papers in the Structure and Development of Child Language (1978)