My article begins by exploring the negative effects that The Paper Chase’s Hart has had on the legal profession due to the modernist world that Hart inhabits. Next, I analyze the effects of modernism on the legal community though the legal trilogy of postmodern author Murakami. First, I use Murakami’s short stories, The Second Bakery Attack and The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women, to analyze the postmodern condition and compare it with the problems which many lawyers suffer. Secondly, I look at the stifling nature of formalism in the law, and examine Murakami’s combination of the mimetic with the formulaic in the novel The Wind-up Bird Chronicle as a potential remedy for formalism and the problems it causes. I conclude with an assessment of the lessons that the legal world can learn from Murakami’s legal trilogy
