Work in the field comprises two complementary perspectives: Law in literature (understanding issues as they are explored in literary texts) and law as literature (understanding legal texts with literary interpretation, analysis, and critique).
James Boyd White's The Legal Imagination (1973) is often credited with initiating the law and literature movement.
This perspective examines and interprets legal texts using the techniques of literary critics.
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic have argued against White, and his theory of some celebrated legal cases in U.S. history; and they agree with Posner on several issues.
According to Delgado and Stefancic, supporters of critical race theory, the moral position of judges are determined by normative social and political forces rather than by literature.