Acceso usuarios
José Luis Monereo Pérez 
Oliver Wendell Holmes es generalmente reconocido como el “padre fundador” del Derecho contemporáneo en Estados Unidos de América, ejerciendo una influencia determinante en prácticamente todas las corrientes de pensamiento jurídico, aunque con particular impacto en las distintas direcciones iusrealistas, pues mantuvo una concepción realista del Derecho muy crítica con el formalismo jurídico imperante en su época. Para él el Derecho es un Derecho vivo y como tal dinámico y cambiante a impulso de las exigencias del presente en el que ha de ser aplicado. En su opinión el Derecho no tiene tanto una “esencia” lógico formal como existencia vital que se resuelve en la “experiencia” jurídica (es conocida la formulación de su concepción del Derecho: “La vida del Derecho no ha sido la lógica, sino la experiencia”, hecha en su libro más importante e influyente, The Common Law, cuyo objetivo principal era presentar una visión general del Common Law, con un enfoque explícito que acoplaba historia y jurisprudencia, realzando el valor la experiencia jurídica y la fijación de estándares jurídicos en varios campos del Common Law). Publicó obras jurídicas magistrales, pero también su pensamiento tuvo una repercusión extraordinaria en el ámbito judicial a través de sus Votos Particulares discrepantes (se anticiparían a su tiempo, porque años después su doctrina judicial sería acogida por la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos, y ya conforme al giro legislativo marcado por la “New Deal”). De manera que reunía en sí la más elevada influencia en el mundo académico y judicial.
Oliver Wendell Holmes is generally recognized as the "founding father" of contemporary law in the United States of America, exerting a decisive influence on practically all currents of legal thought, although with a particular impact on the different legal realist directions, since he maintained a realistic conception of law that was very critical of the prevailing legal formalism of his time. For him, Law is a living Law and as such dynamic and changing according to the demands of the present in which it has to be applied. In his opinion, Law does not so much have a formal logical "essence" as a vital existence that is resolved in the juridical "experience" (the formulation of his conception of Law is well known):"The life of the law has not been logic, but experience", made in his most important and influential book, The Common Law, whose main objective was to present an overview of the Common Law, with an explicit approach that coupled history and jurisprudence, enhancing the value of legal experience and the setting of legal standards in various fields of Common Law). He published masterful legal works, but his thought also had an extraordinary impact in the judicial field through his dissenting dissenting opinions (they would be ahead of their time, because years later his judicial doctrine would be accepted by the Supreme Court of the United States, and already in accordance with the legislative turn marked by the "New Deal"). Thus, he had the highest level of influence in the academic and judicial world.
