predictive theory of law
predictive theory of law. The view that the law is nothing more than a set of predictions about what the courts will decide in given circumstances. • This theory is embodied in Holmes’s famous pronouncement, “The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457, 460–61 (1897). — Also termed prediction theory. Cf. BAD-MAN THEORY.
