Oliphant is generally regarded as a representative of American legal realism and is famous for his statement that the principle of stare decisis is no longer applicable. Although the approach could be implemented in a time when society was relatively simply structured, in the present age it should be abandoned. To this effect, Oliphant pleaded a scientific approach. In his opinion, the way a judge deals with a case can be qualified as a stimulus-response situation, in the sense that the judge reacts to the stimulus of the case brought to his attention. In his 1928 inaugural address as President of the American Association of Law Schools, Oliphant said: "Our case material is a gold mine for scientific work. It has not been scientifically exploited... We should critically examine all the methods now used in any of the social sciences and having any useful degree of objectivity."Herman Oliphant, A Return to Stare Decisis, 14 A.B.A. J. 71, 161 (1928).
