Kelman's confusing writing style takes away from his credibility as does his dubious logic. In my view, Kelman's text provides a strong argument AGAINST the Crit movement and FOR the rule of law and rational legal thought.

I bet there are only 5 people in the world who have read this book from cover to cover. I am certainly not one of them. I was interested in the subject of critical legal studies--until I tried to read this book. The prose is so turgid, so dense, so infuriatingly incomprehensible, that reading a single sentence is like getting hit in the head with a hammer. I choose the following sentence entirely at random (honest): "There is a strong presumption of legislative validity in cases in which excluded (generally racial) minorities are unaffected, given both the assumption that indirect or representaive democracy is the proper solution to the problem of summing and registering the welfare-seeking desires of individuals and the assumption that existing legislatures come reasonably close to meeting the ideals of representative democracy." p. 191. Got that? I thought so. I even had to leave out of the sentence one of Kelman's favorite devices: the italicized word. There's hardly a sentence without one or more of them, and this constant barrage of emphasis requires the reader to stop, reread the sentence with the recommended emphasis, and continue. What you soon discover, however, is that this doesn't make the prose any clearer; indeed, it only makes reading this book that much more painful. Oh, and to the academics who smugly smile at this review and say to themselves (or even out loud), "Well, you [with your little brain] just don't get it, do you?" I respond as follows: good simple prose and intellectual content are not mutually exclusive. (E.g. Ronald Dworkin.)