His philosophy represented a departure from the prevailing jurisprudence of the time: legal formalism.

The gist of the critique of legal formalism had, in all its essentials, already been presented by James and Dewey.

This legal formalism is usually known as the "style" or habitual diction of chanceries and the documents that issue therefrom.

Inquiries relating to garda discipline can take years to unravel due to the overlay of legal formalism in the process.

Crohmălniceanu also described it as "a finely analytical probe into a puzzling psychology and [...] a fine satire of legal formalism."

More recent commentary has focused on Duff's legal formalism and its effect on Canadian federalism.

These demands have posed several problems even legal formalism has been put to the test.

Analytical jurisprudence is not to be mistaken for legal formalism (the idea that legal reasoning is or can be modelled as a mechanical, algorithmic process).

Indeed, it was the analytical jurists who first pointed out that legal formalism is fundamentally mistaken as a theory of law.

The American system tends to require more legal formalism than the British, so it became necessary to define "covert action".