Yes! I really, really liked Ely's _Democracy and Distrust_. I don't know how current its ideas are (it's from 1980), but someone recommended it on some legal thread somewhere and I found it both super easy to read and also very illuminating.

Here's Posner on it, FWIW:

http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...