Comment on Steven Lubet, Reconstructing Atticus Finch

Authors

Rob Atkinson, Florida State University College of Law

Abstract

Professor Lubet has joined a growing list of revisionists who question Atticus's standing as the paragon of lawyerly virtue.1 But Professor Lubet takes revisionism in a distinctly postmodern direction, if not to a radically new level. Atticus's previous critics have wondered how he could have overlooked, perhaps even condoned, the pervasive racism, sexism, and classism of the Depression-era South. They have even occasionally censured his paternalism toward his pro bono client, the working-class black rape defendant Tom Robinson. But they have never questioned either Tom's claim of innocence or the propriety of Atticus's advocacy of that claim. Professor Lubet questions both.

Recommended Citation

Rob Atkinson, Comment on Steven Lubet, Reconstructing Atticus Finch, 97 Mich. L. Rev. 1370 (1999).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol97/iss6/5