TIDAL WAVE OF JUSTICE (Opens Fall 2026)
Expressing the laws that shape our lives

concept / Design: dan goods
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Thank you to Chancellor & Dean David Faigman for his visionary leadership in imagining a data driven sculpture in the lobby to showcase how law affects society.
Creative Development: Chancellor & Dean David L. Faigman, Sean Baughn, Christian Gimber, Matthew Ravenelle
technical design and fabrication: stratin engineering
legal data provided by: free law project

The size of a wave represents a case’s influence on the law.
Droplets correspond to today’s case filings.

(Text by Chancellor & Dean David Faigman)
The law shifts with the tides of history. Every American age is reflected in, and sometimes the consequence of, judicial decisions. These cases become landmarks in the American narrative, names that roil through society and time like tidal waves. In contrast, the vast day-to-day work of the courts has no similar historical resonance. Yet, even the most modest of decisions tumble like small waves touching the immediate parties.

Tidal Wave depicts the grand narrative of judicial decision-making by presenting the impacts of more than 100 landmark cases. The greater the influence—as measured by citation count—the larger the wave.

Additionally, Tidal Wave paints a picture of the other end of the judicial continuum, by displaying in real time the number of cases filed in state and federal courts so far today. The droplets represent this cumulative number. Soon enough, some of these droplets will become the tides of tomorrow.

Concept inspired by The Cure of Troy by Seamus Heaney