William Underhill Moore (1879–1949) was an American legal scholar and Sterling Professor of Law at the Yale Law School (1929–49), having previously taught at Columbia. His principal teaching fields were commercial bank credit and business organizations, Moore was considered one of the intellectual leaders of the Legal Realism movement at Yale and an early user of social scientific methods in legal research.
In 1929 he was co-author with Theodore S. Hope Jr. of "An Institutional Approach to the Law of Commercial Banking," as published in the Yale Law Journal, 1929, an explanation and predicting of banking law decisions that "did not appear to derive from existing legal rules by determining the extent to which the facts of the case deviated from normal banking practice."[1]
Moore believed that judicial decisions often reflected norms of commercial behavior rather than judicial precedent, and he therefore sought to establish a body of factual empirical data as the basis of legal studies. In a famous 1929 study, An Institutional Approach to the Law of Commercial Banking,[2] Moore and co-author Theodore S. Hope, Jr. attempted to explain banking law judicial decisions that did not appear to derive from existing legal rules (lex lata). The authors examined banks' then common use of what were considered to be questionable practices and found that courts upheld a bank's practice when it was in conformance with the practice of other banks in the area, even though it deviated from hypothetical "normal banking practice." In later articles with Gilbert Sussman, Moore undertook an empirical survey of actual banking practices in discounting notes. Moore's empirical emphasis in legal research characterized the body of his work.
Moore's detractors deprecated his empirical work as superficial and contended that "the real social scientists at Yale" rejected it and considered that it "really didn't contribute much."[3]
In a tribute to Moore, Justice William O. Douglas, who was his student and research assistant, described Moore's explanation of his body of work and his refutation of his detractors:
The so-called legal lights ridicule my project. They do not understand it and it would be futile to try to make them understand. I am not writing for them. I am writing for the small select group who are groping for ways of applying the scientific method to the social sciences. Perhaps the present effort will fail. But some day it may succeed. A hundred or five hundred years from now a kindred soul may find in my crude researches some clue to the solution. He is the audience for whom I write.[4]
^"The Heyday of Legal Realism, 1928-1954". 5 August 2016.
^38 Yale L. J. 703 (1929).
^See John H. Schlegel, American Legal Realism and Empirical Social Science (Studies in Legal History, University of North Carolina Press 1995), ISBN 978-0-8078-2179-4. Schlegel contends that by 1939, the Realist empirical research had petered out with little concrete results to show.
^William O. Douglas, Underhill Moore, 59 Yale L. J. 187 (1950).
William UnderhillMoore (1879–1949) was an American legal scholar and Sterling Professor of Law at the Yale Law School (1929–49), having previously taught...
Walter Wheeler Cook, Robert Hale, Wesley Hohfeld, Karl Llewellyn, UnderhillMoore, Herman Oliphant and Warren Seavey, many of whom were associated with...
her to research and write. Both her father, Arthur Underhill, and her husband, Hubert Stuart Moore, were writers (on the law), London barristers, and...
Samuel Moore (1830–1901), Australian headmaster and Anglican priest William UnderhillMoore (1879–1949), American law professor William Usborne Moore (1849–1918)...
Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015. "Peter Moore Is Appointed to Sterling Chair". Yale Bulletin & Calendar. Vol. 30, no. 31...
Evans, Mrs. Norman Hapgood, Arthur Garfield Hays, Horace Liveright, UnderhillMoore, Ernest M. Patterson, James N. Rosenbeg, Lee Simonson, Edgard Varese...
Appleton, 1930. Sanders, Thomas Henry, Henry Rand Hatfield, and William UnderhillMoore. A statement of accounting principles. American Institute of Accountants...
"American Legal Realism and Empirical Social Science: The Singular Case of UnderhillMoore". Buffalo Law Review. 29. University at Buffalo Law School: 195....
radio production in 1982. Moore was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Francis John Moore, an Anglican theologian, and Dora Mavor Moore, who helped establish Canadian...
Ralph W. Underhill (August 8, 1941 – September 8, 2011) was an American college basketball coach, known for leading the Wright State Raiders men's basketball...
Bampfield Moore Carew, William Crocker, Abraham Hart, Edward Browne, John Smith, Judith Daw and Mary Underhill to Virginia. Bampfield Moore Carew's name...
Frank Hawkins Underhill, SM, FRSC (November 26, 1889 – September 16, 1971) was a Canadian journalist, essayist, historian, social critic, and political...
original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. John Garrett Underhill produced the first English-language version of The Bonds of Interest (Los...
Ehrenfels Jürgen Andersen as First Officer of Ehrenfels Bernard Archard as Underhill Martin Benson as Mr. Montero Faith Brook as Mrs. Doris Grice Allan Cuthbertson...
is discovered to have been shot three times at close range. DCI Tony Underhill (Gary Beadle) suspects that Bill's brother, Tommy (Lee Ross), who has...
Castleton ? Edwin S. Underhill Democratic 33rd March 4, 1911 – March 3, 1913 Bath ? 37th March 4, 1913 – March 3, 1915 John Q. Underhill Democratic 16th March...
Alice Graham Underhill (born March 8, 1946) was a Democratic member of the North Carolina General Assembly, representing the state's third House district...
Jones 2016, chapter 1. Moore 2005, p. 6356. Taves 2009. Lidke 2005, p. 144. Underhill 2008. Wright 2000, pp. 181–183. Underhill 2012, p. xiv. Waaijman...
sustaining a neck injury. He was replaced in the England squad by Sam Underhill. Head coach: Steve Borthwick On 15 August 2023, Japan named an initial...
America Zach 2003 Pauly Shore Is Dead Himself Dreamcatcher Lieutenant Owen Underhill 2004 Paparazzi Rex Harper 2005 The Nickel Children Freedo No Rules Kain...
frequency of dopamine (DA) neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) Underhill SM, Wheeler DS, Li M, Watts SD, Ingram SL, Amara SG (July 2014). "Amphetamine...
Borneman, James; Braun, Jonathan; Targan, Stephan R.; McGovern, Dermot P.B.; Underhill, David M. (March 2019). "Malassezia Is Associated with Crohn's Disease...