Explaining and Understanding Adjudication is the first book that attempts to analyse and define the methodology and values of contemporary accounts of adjudication, which can be divided into orthodox philosophies on the one hand and heretical accounts on the other. The author offers an incisive and original analysis of how these supposedly incompatible accounts actually differ. Through an evaluation of Neil MacCormick, Joseph Raz and Ronald Dworkin as the principal exponents of the orthodoxy and Duncan Kennedy and Roberto Unger providing the heretical accounts, William Lucy argues that there are few important differences between the two. Rather, the author concludes, both theories have acute problems in relation to the methodology and values they apply in interpreting adjudication.