At The Beginning Of Research For Clarence Darrow’s Legal Thought

In the late19th and early20th century, the United States is in the period of socialtransition. During this period, there have been many new social problems, and also ledto the progressive reform movement which was the attempt to solve these problems.In order to rebuild the "America dream", a group of progressive American peopleadvocate reforms, and one of them is Clarence Darrow. Clarence Darrow, aprogressive lawyer and defender in a series of sensational trials which shocked thewhole America and the world, and make a great success which laid his historicalposition in the United States legal history. Darrow’s writings, speeches, and a series oflegal defenses indicate that Darrow’s legal thoughts and opinions have the significantcharacteristics of freedon loving, justice dvocating, progress pursueing and so on.That is the season why Darrow is not only widely respected by the world, and alsorepeats success in his career as a criminal defenser.This paper is mainly composed of four parts. In the first part, it mainly analyzesthe formation of Clarence Darrow’s legal thought.This part explain the reasons fromthree aspects,such as the great change of American history,the advanced ideas ofprogressive era and the family history.Among this reasons,the most imporrtant isespecially to explain the great social changes and the relatively special traditionsmake Darrow such a great lawyer. In the second part, it systematically introduces andanalyzes Clarence Darrow’s legal thought and basic propositions from three aspects of"freedom","justice" and "progress" in his career as a criminal defenser.In the thirdpart, it mainly analyzes the influences of Clarence Darrow’s legal thought, trying toexplain that Darrow’s legal thoughts and his criminal defensing career push forwardthe judicial reform of the United States and also influence an era.The last part is asummary of Darrow’s legal thought.