Two years ago, John Hart Ely was just another professor of Law. His no-nonsense style and scholarship had won him the respect of his colleagues in Langdell Hall, but Ely shunned the spotlight almost aggressively, avoiding the congressional hearings and public histrionics that many fellow professors revelled in. On the home front, too, he played it cool, largely steering clear of internal battles over the Law Review and affirmative action.

Today Ely retains his retiring nature, but he can no longer escape the public eye. He is now universally acknowledged to be one of the nation's top three of four constitutional scholars, having ascended to the top of his field on the strength of his 1980 book, Democracy and Distrust. That work has been widely hailed as the most innovative theory of judicial review since World War II and the most important book about law in 15 years. Notes one Law School instructor, "Nobody takes constitutional law today without learning Ely's name. That wasn't true several years ago."

Democracy and Distrust did more for Ely than thrust him into the legal limelight. It also prompted Stanford Law School in December to appoint the 42-year-old Ely its next dean. His recent scholastic credentials, in fact, were so overpowering that the vote of Stanford's appointments committee was unanimous--almost unheard of in a field as sharply divided intellectually as constitutional law.

Not that Ely pulled any punches with his scholarship--far from it. Two weeks ago, his office received the 100th published review of Ely's book. Gerald Gunther, a Stanford law professor with no small reputation himself, says of Ely's work. "I can't recall a book in the field that has spurred this many symposia and reviews, he may have set a record for the amount of discussion of theory that has generated." But while most reviewers laud Ely's scholarship, his argument that judges should confine themselves to reviewing only certain, narrow types of laws, has provoked wide controversy and sharp debate in the legal world Says Ely, with understatement. "It did get more attention than I expected."

And understatement is the cornerstone of the Ely style. In person and in writing, his is dry, slightly cynical humor that allows him to stray just so far from the serious mien he adopts toward his subjects. He appears reluctant to discuss his personal life, but eager to hold forth on his theories, straightforwardly but not pompously. Clarity, too, seems an Ely hallmark--even an analysis as complex as that of Democracy and Distant comes across clearly and colorfully in his hands, as Ely's occasional asides temper the book's serious analysis.

Indeed, the book's theory seems almost too simple as Ely lays it out. He dismisses the notion that judges should ever consider the merits of legislation, unwise as it may seem. The reason: judicial interventionism subverts the democratic process, and the values that judges often invoke to strike down legislation are often less than widely shared. "I guess the background principle is, 'Don't second-guess the legislature," Ely explains.

That judicial self-restraint has certainly not marked the Supreme Court during most of the past three decades; justices like William O. Dougles, the "Great Dissenter," carved out activist roles and frequently invalidated legislation that they felt contradicted basic American values. To such judges, Ely's answer is simple: "It must be very frustrating for people who think they understand things better than elected officials. But that's what they ought to learn to be--frustrated."

But arguing for judicial passivism in the name of democracy is nothing new; scholars have done it for generations, raising their voices in particular in the aftermath of the liberal activist Court of Chief Justice Earl Warren--which provoked the wrath of conservatives by striking down legislation with regularity during the 1950s and 1960s. What makes Ely's approach unique is that he spotlights a small area in which he argues judges must exert their authority. As a result, he likes to call himself "a selective activist."

Ely sees judges as specially charged, first, with purifying the political process--unblocking "stoppages," in his ling. Legislation that seems to subvert the principle of "one man, one vote" would warrant intense judicial scrutiny; so, for the matter, would government actions that limit political speech or assembly. Ely derives that role directly from the Constitution, which he contends is almost solely "about process"--and includes none of the "substantive values" that judges have sought to find in it.

Second, he contends, the Constitution implicitly calls upon judges to protect minorities within the political process. Legislatures that pass bills imposing burdens on specific groups inadequately represented in the legislature should be watched particularly closely. A mostly white legislature that singles out white citizens for certain burdens would not be called to task by a court of Ely clones. But his judges would be suspicious of any bill that penalizes a specific group that is unlikely to have been looked out for by the legislature. The bottom line is that under Ely's "we they" formula, electoral or legislative processes that violate Ely's rule of "equal concern and respect" should be scrapped, all else should not

The genius of Ely's scheme is that it seems to avoid the age-old tension between democratic theory and judicial activism. And in Democracy and Distrust, Ely buttressed his process-oriented view with a historical analysis of the Constitution so persuasive that Ely could contend that his "representation-reinforcing" theory of judicial review was just what the Founding Fathers had intended.

Under his scheme, "The Court can do a lot of leading--but only in purifying and opening up the political process. For the ultimate role of judges, as Ely saw it, was "not to second-guess the merits of what the political branches have done, but rather to see if it was done fairly." Simple and appealing.

But that's not how everyone sees it. For every Ely convert, there has been an ardent critic, and almost all of the latter are politically liberal. One of Ely's sharpest critics, law professor Richard Parker, argues that his colleague's focus on process alone--and not fundamental rights--"is grossly middle of the road and insensitive to class distinctions." Democracy and Distrust, Parker has written is just "an apology" for the upper-middle class polity that is America.

Another critic, law professor Laurence H. Tribe, argues that Ely's approach would strip judges of power to review much legislation that could deny men real rights. And Archibald Cox, Loeb University Professor, takes issue with Ely's reading of history. To Cox, Ely's otherwise excellent work ignored the Constitution's natural rights heritage..one that should allow judges to nullify legislation that clashes with America's timeless values--no matter how pure the process that brought about the legislation.

Ely considers himself a political liberal; his colleagues guess his voting record would show him to be a mainstream Democrat. The irony, to his critics, is that judges who adopt Ely's "selective activism" could undermine traditionally liberal ideas. Ely does not disagree--but to him, having judges as "an elite with a final word" outweighs the danger of having unwise legislation.