This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is In Pursuit of Knowledge: Scholars, Status, and Academic Culture by Deborah L. Rhode and published by the Stanford University Press.

“Although academics have never lacked for critics, publications on the profession tend to be either popularized polemics, which are engaging but misleading, or scholarly analyses, which are intellectually responsible but of little interest to anyone but specialists. In Pursuit of Knowledge offers an alternative: a unique portrait of academic life that should appeal to both experts and a general audience. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including higher education, history, law, sociology, economics, and literature, the book focuses on the ways in which the pursuit of status has undermined the pursuit of knowledge. Deborah Rhode argues that both individual scholars and institutions in higher education are caught in an arms race of reputation. The result has been to skew priorities in scholarship, erode commitments to teaching, compromise efforts of public intellectuals, and impede effectiveness in administration…” - Book Description

“Rhode approaches a familiar subject in unusual and creative ways, artfully synthesizing vast materials from different fields and sources. Her sober ethical argument is sure to stimulate debate among scholars and professional leaders in higher education.” – Ted Youn, Boston College

In Pursuit of Knowledge will be available to borrow after Friday, June 27, 2008

The Featured Book of the Week

After a very long break, the Featured Book of the Week is back with Scientific Jury Selection by Joel D. Lieberman & Bruce D. Sales, published by the American Psychological Association.

“The authors provide a thorough review of the most common techniques used to select jurors, and a critical evaluation of the ultimate effectiveness of these methods. This critique is based upon an examination of the social science literature. Psychologists and other social scientists as well as practicing trial consultants who read the book should gain a better understanding of the current state of research relevant to scientific jury selection, and areas where new research needs to be conducted to advance the field. Attorneys who read the book should be better able to decide whether or not to hire consultants to assist in future litigation, and if so, what types of services these consultants should provide.” - Book Description

“Scientific jury selection is marked by wild claims and too little relevant data. This volume is a comprehensive and refreshingly balanced presentation of what we thing we know, what we actually know, and what we don’t know about scientific jury selection.” – Shari Seidman Diamond, PhD, JD, Northwestern University School of Law

Scientific Jury Selection will be available to borrow after Friday, June 20, 2008

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Stump Your Lawyer! A Quiz to Challenge the Legal Mind by Howard Zaharoff and published by Chronicle Books.

“For the lawyers who think they know it all or for those of you who worry that your legal counsel can't tell a tort from a tart Stump Your Lawyer! is a hilarious tour of the quirks and curiosities of our legal system. This tongue-in-cheek volume offers witty, practical, and thought-provoking challenges for the legally minded. Short case histories, definitions, multiple-choice quizzes, and other formats mock the bar exam approach and probe the reader's knowledge of obscure statutes, baffling decisions, bizarre legal concepts, and antiquated jargon. Whether you're studying, practicing, or running from the law, this book will keep you laughing and learning all the way to the courthouse.” - Book Description

Stump Your Lawyer! will be available to borrow after Friday, December 14, 2007

The Featured Book of the Week

This Week's Featured Book is An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln by Mark E. Steiner and published by Northern Illinois University Press.

“Abraham Lincoln practiced law for nearly 25 years, five times longer than he served as president. Nonetheless, this aspect of his life was known only in the broadest outlines until the Lincoln Legal Papers project set to work gathering the surviving documentation of more than 5,600 of his cases…This portrait not only depicts Lincoln’s work for the railroads and the infamous case in which he defended the claims of a slaveholder; it also illustrates his more typical cases involving debt and neighborly disputes…Most important, Steiner highlights Lincoln’s guiding principles as a lawyer. In contrast to the popular caricature of the lawyer as a scoundrel, Lincoln followed his personal resolve to be "honest at all events," thus earning the nickname "Honest Abe." For him, honesty meant representing clients to the best of his ability, regardless of his own beliefs about the justice of their cause. Lincoln also embraced a professional ideal that cast the lawyer as a guardian of order…Over the course of his legal career, however, Lincoln’s dedication to the community and his clients’ personal interests became outmoded. As a result of the rise of powerful, faceless corporate clients and the national debate over slavery, Lincoln the lawyer found himself in an increasingly impersonal, morally ambiguous world.” - Book Description

An Honest Calling will be available to borrow after Friday, November 30, 2007

The Featured Book of the Week

This Week's Featured Book is To Have and to Hold: Marrying and its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400-1600, edited by Philip L. Reynolds and John Witte, Jr. and published by Cambridge University Press.

“This volume analyzes how, why, and when pre-modern Europeans documented their marriages - through property settlements, prenuptial contracts, court testimony, church weddings, and more. The authors consider both the function of documentation in the process of marrying and what the surviving documents say about pre-modern marriage. After analyzing the foundations of Western marriage set by Roman law and Patristic theology, the chapters provide vivid case studies of marital documents and practices in medieval France, England, Iceland, and Ireland, and in Renaissance Florence, Douai, and Geneva.”- Book Description

To Have and to Hold will be available to borrow after Friday, November 23, 2007

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is The Trial in American Life by Robert A. Ferguson and published by The University of Chicago Press.

“Since the earliest days of our nation, high-profile trials have captivated the American imagination. But such trials are more than mere spectacle: by providing a forum for discussion of contentious issues, they also serve as public ceremonies and barometers of thought. In The Trial in American Life, Robert Ferguson argues that we can only understand the importance of pivotal trials by examining their public impact as well as their legal significance…Ultimately, such questions lead Ferguson to the issue of modern press coverage of courtrooms. While acknowledging that media accounts can skew perceptions, Ferguson argues forcefully in favor of television coverage—and he takes the Supreme Court to task for its failure to grasp the importance of this issue. Trials must be seen to be understood, but Ferguson reminds us that we have a duty, currently ignored, to ensure that cameras serve the court rather than the media…”- Book Description

“A distinguished law professor, accomplished historian, and fine writer, Robert Ferguson is uniquely qualified to narrate and analyze high-profile trials in American History. This is a superb book and a tremendous achievement. The chapter on John Brown alone is worth the price of admission.” – Judge Richard A. Posner

The Trial in American Life will be available to borrow after Friday, November 16, 2007

The Featured Book of the Week

This Week's Feature book is Dracula Was a Lawyer by Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo and published by Conari Press.

“It’s no laughing matter that many of us are fascinated by the legal system and the people within it. In Dracula Was a Lawyer, trivia experts Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo offer tidbits about the lawyers we love to hate (until we need one!), the pitfalls in our legal system, celebrity lawyers, and more. This curious compendium puts lawyers and legal history on trial and exposes more than 500 little-known facts and outrageous oddities from the wild world of law” - Book Description

Dracula Was a Lawyer will be available to borrow after Friday, November 2, 2007

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Book is Judges and Their Audiences: A Perspective on Judicial Behavior by Lawrence Baum and published by Princeton University Press.

“What motivates judges as decision makers?.. The conventional scholarly wisdom holds that judges on higher courts seek only to make good law, good policy, or both. In these theories, judges are influenced by other people only in limited ways, in consequence of their legal and policy goals. In contrast, Baum argues that the influence of judges' audiences is pervasive. This influence derives from judges' interest in popularity and respect, a motivation central to most people… Judges and Their Audiences uses research in social psychology to make the case that audiences shape judges' choices in substantial ways. Drawing on a broad range of scholarship on judicial decision-making and an array of empirical evidence, the book then analyzes the potential and actual impact of several audiences, including the public, other branches of government, court colleagues, the legal profession, and judges' social peers. Engagingly written, this book provides a deeper understanding of key issues concerning judicial behavior on which scholars disagree, identifies aspects of judicial behavior that diverge from the assumptions of existing models, and shows how those models can be strengthened.” - Book Description

“An original contribution to the study of judicial politics that draws from the field of social psychology to suggest a radically new approach to the study of decisional behavior.”- Sheldon Goldman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Judges and Their Audiences will be available to borrow after Friday, October 19, 2007

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design and a School Board in Dover, PA by Gordy Slack and published by John Wiley & Sons.

“A compelling eyewitness account of the recent courtroom drama in Dover, Pennsylvania that put evolution on trial. Journalist Gordy Slack offers a riveting, personal, and often amusing first-hand account that details six weeks of some of the most widely ranging, fascinating, and just plain surreal testimony in U.S. legal history—a battle between hard science and religious conservatives wishing to promote a new version of creationism in schools. During the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Areas School Board trial, the members of the local school board defended their decision to require teachers to present intelligent design alongside evolution as an explanation for the origins and diversity of life on earth. The trial revealed much more than a disagreement about how to approach science education. It showed two essentially different and conflicting views of the world and the lengths some people will go to promote their own. The ruling by George W. Bush-appointed Judge John Jones III was unexpected in its stridency: Not only did he conclude that intelligent design was religion and not science and therefore had no place in a science classroom, he scolded the school board for wasting public time and money…” - Book Description

“Gordy Slack's beautifully written The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything should be on absolutely everyone's must read list. Although Slack does not conceal his own evolutionary commitments, he is balanced and fair, showing above all that this is a cultural battle and not simply one of science versus religion. The book is a terrific read.”- Michael Ruse, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University

The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything will be available to borrow after Friday, October 12, 2007

Featured Book of the Week

After a short break, the Featured Book of the Week is back. This week's Featured Book is The Myth of Judicial Activism: Making Sense of Supreme Court Decisions by Kermit Roosevelt III and published by Yale University Press.

“This carefully considered book is a welcome addition to the debate over “judicial activism.” Constitutional scholar Kermit Roosevelt III offers an elegantly simple way to resolve the heated discord between conservatives, who argue that the Constitution is immutable, and progressives, who insist that it is a living document that must be reinterpreted in new cultural contexts so that its meaning evolves. Roosevelt uses plain language and compelling examples to explain how the Constitution can be both a constant and an organic document. Recent years have witnessed an increasing drumbeat of complaints about judicial behavior, focusing particularly on Supreme Court decisions that critics charge are reflections of the Justices’ political preferences rather than enforcement of the Constitution. The author takes a balanced look at these controversial decisions through a compelling new lens of constitutional interpretation. He clarifies the task of the Supreme Court in constitutional cases, then sets out a model to describe how the Court creates doctrine to implement the meaning of the Constitution. Finally, Roosevelt uses this model to show which decisions can be justified as legitimate and which cannot.” - Book Description

“A graceful and compelling account of constitutional decision-making. Roosevelt shows how judges shape workable legal rules from constitutional meanings when reasonable minds can and do disagree. As learned as it is accessible, this book is a welcome antidote to today’s overheated constitutional rhetoric.”- Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School

The Myth of Judicial Activism will be available to borrow after Friday, September 28, 2007

Featured Book of the Week

The Featured Book of the Week is A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America by Saul Cornell and published by Oxford University Press.

“Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. He shows how the modern "collective right" view of the Second Amendment, the one federal courts have accepted for over a hundred years, owes more to the Anti-Federalists than the Founders…A Well-Regulated Militia not only restores the lost meaning of the original Second Amendment, but it provides a clear historical road map that charts how we have arrived at our current impasse over guns. For anyone interested in understanding the great American gun debate, this is a must read.” - Book Description

“A provocative alternative in the debate over the historical meaning of the Second Amendment. Anyone interested in how the right to bear arms was thought about in the early republic will need to take this book into account.” - Keith E. Whittington, author of Constitutional Interpretation

A Well-Regulated Militia will be available to borrow after Friday, August 17, 2007

This week's Featured Book is People, Property, or Pets? edited by Marc. D Hauser, Fiery Cushman, and Matthew Kamen and published by Purdue University Press.

“What's the difference between owning a painting, a dog, or a young child? For starters, you can't own a child, but you are legally responsible for their care. You can own a painting and a dog; both fall under the jurisdiction of the law and in particular, property rights. But why should a dog, man's best friend, an animal with a mind and emotions, fall under the same general category as a painting? Juxtaposed in this way, the question seems silly. How could the law be so foolish? Can't lawyers see the difference? Why shouldn't dogs end up in the same category as young children, a category of living things that require our care? If the law recognized dogs, along with cats, cows, mice, monkeys, birds, and flies as requiring legal guardianship, this would have radical consequences for how we live our lives. We couldn't keep animals in zoos, couldn't eat them, use their fur to keep warm, or test them with drugs to improve our own health. Their lives would be different, and so would ours. This book explores these issues, but does so in a fresh new way. Rather than engage the debate from the perspective of a single voice, or the combination of voices from different experts, we present a set of essays from a lawyer philosopher, biochemist, psychologist, and animal scientist, together with a group of educated students engaged in the debate. The essays are set up to present both sides, some adopting arguments in favor of a shift to legal guardianship, while others support their status as property. Experts in the field will be engaged by the subtle issues surrounding this debate, while educators will find the student essays refreshing and of interest in class room seminars.” - Book Description

People, Property, or Pets? will be available to borrow after Friday, August 10, 2007

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Courting Failure: How Competition for Big Cases is Corrupting the Bankruptcy Courts. Lynn M. LoPucki authored the book and The University of Michigan Press published it.

“A sobering chronicle of our broken bankruptcy-court system, Courting Failure exposes yet another American institution corrupted by greed, avarice, and the thirst for power. Lynn LoPucki's eye-opening account of the widespread and systematic decay of America's bankruptcy courts is a blockbuster story that has yet to be reported in the media. LoPucki reveals the profound corruption in the U.S. bankruptcy system and how this breakdown has directly led to the major corporate failures of the last decade, including Enron, MCI, WorldCom, and Global Crossing. LoPucki, one of the nation's leading experts on bankruptcy law, offers a clear and compelling picture of the destructive power of "forum shopping," in which attorneys choose courts that offer the most favorable outcome for their bankrupt clients. The courts, lured by power and prestige, streamline their requirements and lower their standards to compete for these lucrative cases. The result has been a series of increasingly shoddy reorganizations of major American corporations, proposed by greedy corporate executives and authorized by case-hungry judges.” - Book Description

"This book is smart, shocking and funny. This story has everything-professional greed, wrecked companies, and embarrassed judges. Insiders are already buzzing." – Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Courting Failure will be available to borrow after Friday, August 3, 2007

Featured Book of the Week

Albeit belated, this week's Featured Book is The Spirit of American Law. It was edited by George S. Grossman and published by Westview Press.

“An anthology of introductory readings on the roots, current practice, and future of American law - This collection of readings is intended as a broad introduction to the roots, practice, and future of law in America. Compiled from the recommended reading lists for first-year students from over eighty law schools, the selections in this anthology were chosen to explore broad subjects rather than specific niches of law. The readings have been selected largely from books with appeal to the general public; only the concluding section contains articles from legal periodicals. Professor Grossman has chosen readings that illustrate the defining characteristics of America's legal profession, the philosophical issues that underlie the day-to-day practice of law, and the social consequences of sometimes abstract legal decisions. The organization is largely chronological-thirty-three readings divided into sections on the roots, growth, and future of an American institution.” - Book Description

“This is an excellent collection that every law student and practitioner can dip into at their leisure and find an appreciation of our legal system.” - Bimonthly Review of Law Books

The Spirit of American Law will be available to borrow after Friday, July 27, 2007

The Featured Book

Due to the AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) conference, Just Words: Law, Language, and Power will be the Featured Book for the next two weeks. Just Words was written by John M. Conley and William M. O'Barr and published by the University of Chicago Press.

“Is it "just words" when a lawyer cross-examines a rape victim in the hopes of getting her to admit an interest in her attacker? Is it "just words" when the Supreme Court hands down a decision or when business people draw up a contract? In tackling the question of how an abstract entity exerts concrete power, Just Words focuses on what has become the central issue in law and language research: what language reveals about the nature of legal power. Conley and O'Barr show how the microdynamics of the legal process and the largest questions of justice can be fruitfully explored through the field of linguistics. Each chapter covers a language-based approach to a different area of the law, from the cross-examinations of victims and witnesses to the inequities of divorce mediation. Combining analysis of common legal events with a broad range of scholarship on language and law, Just Words seeks the reality of power in the everyday practice and application of the law. As the only study of its type, the book is the definitive treatment of the topic that will be welcomed by students and specialists alike.” - Book Description

"From their careful analyses of discourse in legal settings as diverse as rape trials and divorce mediations, Conley and O'Barr demonstrate convincingly that power relationships pervade legal process. Just Words is both an engaging introduction to the study of legal anthropology, and a model for how such work should be done." – Lawrence M. Solan, Brooklyn Law School

Just Words will be available to borrow after Friday, July 20, 2007

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America by Jeffrey Rosen and published by Times Books.

“The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal. In this compelling work of character-driven history, Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Court through the personal and philosophical rivalries on the bench that transformed the law—and by extension, our lives. The story begins with the great Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson, cousins from the Virginia elite whose differing visions of America set the tone for the Court’s first hundred years. The tale continues after the Civil War with Justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who clashed over the limits of majority rule. Rosen then examines the Warren Court era through the lens of the liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, for whom personality loomed larger than ideology. He concludes with a pairing from our own era, the conservatives William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, only one of whom was able to build majorities in support of his views. Through these four rivalries, Rosen brings to life the perennial conflict that has animated the Court—between those justices guided by strong ideology and those who forge coalitions and adjust to new realities. He illuminates the relationship between judicial temperament and judicial success or failure. The stakes are nothing less than the future of American jurisprudence.” - Book Description

The Supreme Court will be available to borrow after Friday, July 6, 2007

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Fathers’ Rights: The Best Interest of Your Child Includes You by James J. Gross and published by Sphinx Publishing.

“Millions of fathers are currently fighting for custody of their children. Many wonder if they will ever again be an important part of their children’s lives. Fathers’ Rights covers every aspect of the custody process, including protecting the parent/child relationship as a break-up occurs, determining when to settle and when to litigate and explanations concerning the court’s determination of a fair level of child support. This new edition updates the ever-changing laws in this area and expands into additional topics of importance concerning paternity issues and fathers serving in the armed forces. Numerous court cases are used as examples to illustrate relevant situations. An extensive list of resources including agencies, organizations and websites is included as easy reference for the reader.” - Book Description

Fathers’ Rights will be available to borrow after Friday, June 22, 2007.

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Owning and Managing Forests: A Guide to Legal, Financial, and Practical Matters by Thom J. McEvoy and published by Island Press.

“Owning and Managing Forests is both an accessible overview of the privileges, rights, and obligations that accompany forest ownership and a guidebook to help active forest owners and managers use laws to their advantage and avoid the pitfalls of expensive and exhausting litigation... The book also describes the many different facets of trusts, changes in forestland taxation methods, and new licensing and certification options. Included, too, is a section on avoiding disputes and how to use alternative dispute resolution methods to avoid costly, troubling, and time-consuming court battles. Owning and Managing Forests provides clear and concise descriptions of often confusing concepts and difficult subjects, and addresses issues in a competent yet conversational tone. Anyone involved with owning or managing forestland will find the book an essential guide and reference.” - Book Description

Owning and Managing Forests will be available to borrow after Friday, June 15, 2007

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law by Lawrence Rosen and published by Prentice Hall PTR.

“Now that open source software is blossoming around the world, it is crucial to understand how open source licenses work—and their solid legal foundations. Open Source Initiative general counsel Lawrence Rosen presents a plain-English guide to open source law for developers, managers, users, and lawyers. Rosen clearly explains the intellectual property laws that support open source licensing, carefully reviews today’s leading licenses, and helps you make the best choices for your project or organization...” - Book Description

“I have studied Rosen’s book in detail and am impressed with its scope and content. I strongly recommend it to anybody interested in the current controversies surrounding open source licensing.” - John Terpstra, Samba.org; cofounder, Samba-Team

“Linux and open source software have forever altered the computing landscape. The important conversations no longer revolve around the technology but rather the business and legal issues. Rosen’s book is must reading for anyone using or providing open source solutions.” - Stuart Open Source Development Labs

Open Source Licensing will be available to borrow after Friday, June 8, 2007.

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law by W. Noel Keyes and published by the American Bar Association.

“Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law is a comprehensive, scholarly analysis of bioethics and the development of its standards. This book provides an explanatory forum of ideas and innovative solutions covering the major medical, legal, and ethical issues that we face in the 21st Century. Beginning with a history of how these ethical dilemmas originated and progressed, the author provides you with facts, analysis and case law that will help you understand these issues and further identify how we can face them…Bioethics is a multidisciplinary field of law and one that can not be ignored. Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law provides you with timely analysis to help you understand current ethical issues in legal medicine, health law and policy, professional liability, hospital law, food and drug law, medical legal research and more.” - Book Description

Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law will be available to borrow after Friday, May 25, 2007