Legal Profession Blog

New memoirs by Barbara Babcock and William Norris tell life stories in the legal profession

[Posted by Alan Childress] As part of my Quid Pro Books project, announced first here in 2010 (has it been that long?!), we've released two compelling autobiographies. Judge William Norris wrote the prescient opinion striking down the ban on gays in the military (almost three decades before marriage equality), but also shares his time before and after serving on the Ninth Circuit. Judge Alex Kozinski blurbs:

Recounted in this remarkable book is a conversation Bill Norris had with Justice White following his opinion for the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick, upholding Georgia’s sodomy law. Shortly after, Justice White visited the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference and Bill confronted him about the injustice of the decision. I witnessed the interaction. No one else was bold enough to challenge the Justice, though others harbored the same doubts. Justice White shrugged off Bill’s concerns as trivial, but Bill stood firm and I could see from his tone and look that he would have none of it. Soon, Bill set about undermining Bowers with his brilliant opinion in the Perry Watkins case. The theory in Watkins resulted, a decade and a half later, in the overruling of Bowers and, eventually, to marriage equality. This story, among many others, makes this personal history a gripping and fulfilling read.

Here's its link at Amazon and B&N, and also our informational page with more links and info.

The other new release is by Barbara Babcock--the first woman law prof at Stanford, the first director of the D.C. Public Defender, and one of the first Asst. AG's at the Justice Department. Her life of "firsts" includes candid reflections on a tough childhood, her emergence (somewhat reluctant or naive) into feminism, and her biographical authorship on Clara Foltz. And she answers "How can you defend guilty people?" Blurbist Dahlia Lithwick writes:

Life will afford you no better sherpa on the extraordinary journey women have taken in the legal profession than Barbara Babcock. This book should be required reading for anyone who isn’t certain that they have a place at the lawyers table. Babcock’s amazing life has made a space for so many of us. Her story will do the same.

Our information page has info and links, and it's new at Amazon and B&N, etc. Thanks.

Kritzer on Lawyers at Work

Herbert M. Kritzer (U. Minn., Law) has published a new volume Lawyers at Work, collecting and updating his 35 years of empirical and theoretical study of attorneys in action, including daily office work, use of expert witnesses, contingency fees, "professionalism," sanctions, and international comparisons. He's known as one of the most insightful and sustained researchers in law and political science on the legal occupation and professional literature. The book is published as part of my Quid Pro Books project and is found as such places as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, in print (hardcover and paperback) and ebooks. (Alan Childress)

Galanter's famous "Why the Haves Come Out Ahead" essay is reprinted as a book

The role of the legal profession and procedural-systemic advantages to repeat players and corporations are both at the heart of Marc Galanter's 1974 article "Why the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead." He wanted to make it available to classes and the like in a short-ish, cheap book, so I worked with him and we did that. Here's the 40th-anniversary paperback at Amazon, and in a week or two we'll add ebooks and a hardcover version. For now, though, it may be that profs who teach from the article and assign a photocopy may prefer this new incarnation by Galanter (Wisconsin) and his new introduction. It also adds new commentary by Shauhin Talesh (UC-Irvine) and Robert Gordon (Stanford). Obviously I have an interest in it, as series editor and publisher, so take this FWIW, but I did think teachers would want to know it's out now in this form. I was happy to work with Marc to release it this way. [Alan Childress]

New book on reform and challenges in the Irish legal profession after bailout by Troika

Maeve Hosier, a recent doctoral graduate of NUI Galway, has published her thesis The Regulation of the Legal Profession in Ireland. After seeing her Law & Society Asssociation conference talk on the Irish financial meltdown and its implications for the profession, I asked to include her larger study in my Quid Pro Books publishing project's Dissertation Series. She agreed and we worked hard all summer to get it out in time to be considered while reform legislation is on deck. In earlier legislative debate, Ireland's Minister of Justice called it "marvelous" and declared it "compulsory reading." Then John Flood generously provided a Foreword and explained the worldwide implications of Maeve's observations and comparative research (she
looked particularly at other bailout nations, Greece and Portugal). The book came out this week, with paperback linked at Amazon (more general information here). Consider recommending it to be adopted by a law library. Here's the abstract to John's intro as posted on SSRN:

The foreword shows how in the recession of 2008 lawyers escaped culpability while bankers were excoriated for their role in it. Nevertheless in Ireland, when it became a debtor country in the Eurozone, the Troika (IMF, EU, ECB) enforced a restructuring of the legal services market. This is viewed in the global context of a shift towards liberalisation of the legal services market at national and supranational levels. Despite
the shift lawyers are rejecting change where they can, or, if they are unable to resist, at least attempt to delay it.

Somewhat unrelated, and lighter reading to be sure (more of a commuter or beach read), we also published this week a lawyer's novel-like true account of a trial stemming from a shipwreck, The 
Widow Wave, by Jay Jacobs (or in Kindle, etc.). And completely unrelated is a modern take on Cicero's "On Old Age," called How to be Old, by Richard Gerberding. Thanks for letting me update what's now out after a summer's worth of editing, working with some really great authors. [Alan Childress]

Collection of papers on "Jews and the Law" and in the legal profession: now published as a book and ebook

Collecting essays presented in a conference held at Cardozo Law School a few years ago, editors Ari Mermelstein, Victoria Saker Woeste, Ethan Zadoff and Marc Galanter have published a new book on Jews and Judaism in the legal profession and law. Called Jews and the Law, it is a book of legal history and current insights about the profession, law firms, networks, assimilation, and antisemitism. Here is a story about it by Dan Ernst on Legal History Blog. It was published through my Quid Pro Books publishing project, and so it no longer sits as a collection of unpublished papers from a conference but is now -- I am proud to say -- a resource that can be read by anyone or recommended to a library to acquire. Its Amazon page for the paperback is here, and it can also be bought at many other places and in ebook sites such as Apple, Play, Kindle and Nook. [Alan Childress]

John Flood on an inside view of the corporate law firm

Here's a new book in my Quid Pro project that is about the legal profession. UK law prof John Flood (Westminster) embedded himself into a Chicago firm and accounted for the firm's activities, culture, and representations beyond litigation. It was one of the first black-box views of BigLaw. It's like an anthropological look inside a law firm. He updated it throughout into this Second Edition, and added a new introduction and afterword on the global changes to law practice and firm governance (comparing the UK). Lynn Mather of SUNY Buffalo law school added a new Foreword. You may want to recommend to your library that they add this book to the collection. Find it at YBP, Ingram, Amazon, B&N, etc., in paperback, hardcover, and ebooks. [Alan Childress]

12 Years a Slave out in hardback and ebooks

Not really a book on the legal profession, unless you count the gutsy representation of the author (to regain his freedom) near the end of the book, by a similarly named attorney Northup (and legal documents in an appendix). But anyway my Quid Pro Books project released a nice hardcover edition of Twelve Years a Slave, an historical memoir which the movie tracks closely. We added some new documents at the back, such as the manifest of slaves of the ship carrying the author. Most previous hardcover printings used small font to jam this important book into many fewer pages. Our edition is carefully presented. Amazon page is linked here, and it's also at B&N online. Our Kindle edition, unlike those by other presses, is faithfully presented and proofread, as are available Quid Pro options at Apple and Nook. [Alan Childress]

Law and Justice from Leading Voices in the Academy and Public Service

A little off-topic, perhaps, but here's a shout out to the Legal History Blog and editor Dan Ernst for today's generous post on my Quid Pro publishing project. While Dan notes several books there that were just released -- such as reprinting Harry Scheiber's The Wilson Administration and Civil Rights -- the book most fitting our own blog is ASU's Marjorie Zatz, Marie Provine and James Walsh's collection, Law and the Quest for Justice. Chapters are written by such accomplished people as Charles Ogletree, Erwin Chemerinsky, Lani Guinier, Judith Resnik, Jack Greenberg, Anthony Lewis, and Robert Reich. Both of these also have ebook editions, such as Kindle. And not at all on-topic, but a sentimental favorite, is Lee Scheingold's One Silken Thread: Poetry's Presence in Grief.  [Alan Childress]

More summer reading before law school begins

Posted by Alan Childress

We've written before on good books to read before starting law school. Or good activities, including travel or Doing Nothing (but biking W.I. is illegal in North Dakota). To update that: our senior admissions dean at Tulane, Susan Krinsky, gave me permission to link her own collected list of good reads before law school. Here it is (and thank you, Susan): Download Suggested Reading List 2012_Final.

 

New edition of Llewellyn's The Bramble Bush to read before law school; mystery novel by Lawrence Friedman

As Jeff will be pleased to know (since he is aware I have worked on this for two years), I worked with Stewart Macaulay (Wisc., Law) to produce a new edition of Karl Llewellyn's classic The Bramble Bush, with Macaulay's intro and notes. It is a great read the summer before law school, if one wants summer reading then. Here is the paperback and Kindle link; it is also on Apple and Nook. Llewellyn had very idealistic views of the legal profession--the last chapter is a rejoinder to a Carl Sandburg poem that wonders why the hearse-horse snickers when carrying a lawyer's bones? But most of the book is a how-to for 1Ls that is, surprisingly (or sadly) still on-the-nose for course prep and exams. I hope people are happy we brought it back--and especially that we fixed the errors in other reprints of it. There are no "cannons of jurisprudence," Oxford.

More on summer reading before law school in my previous post collecting lists on that.

Less relevant to the blog topic, Lawrence Friedman and I released his second mystery novel, about the adventures of trusts and estates lawyer Frank May. Amazon is here.

And new Harvard Law Review issue 6 is in Kindle here. [Alan Childress]

Cynthia Epstein on women in the legal profession

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (CUNY, Sociology) has republished her classic and foundational study Women in Law as part of the Quid Pro book project. It adds a new Foreword by Stanford's Deborah Rhode. Excerpt on the demise of 'Ladies' Day' in law schools, and other info, found at MsJD blog. And the book itself is at Amazon in paperback or Kindle, plus B&N for Nook and Apple iBooks. Although the book certainly covers women as law students and in law teaching, most chapters are about professional practice as such, in firms, solo practice, public interest work, government, and the judiciary.

Also out in paperback is a book I edited, written by Tulane students: Hot Topics in the Legal Profession 2012. Those two are the newest ones on topic with the U.S. legal profession. Upcoming is a reissue in paperback of Llewellyn's The Bramble Bush, though already in Kindle and other ebook formats. [Alan Childress]

New book 'Hot Topics in the Legal Profession - 2012' out in paperback

Now out in paperback, at Amazon, B&N, etc., is the Hot Topics 2012 book (in addition to the Kindle and ebook versions I wrote on a few weeks ago). Fourteen detailed chapters from my students in Advanced Professional Responsibility cover such topics as false guilty pleas, negotiation ethics, bar discipline for acts in the lawyer's personal life, the student debt crisis, client records in a digital world, outsourcing and the practice of law, and MDL hybridized settlements. I contributed a foreword but the stars are my students. Profits benefit Tulane PILF.

Unrelated, out today in the Classic Dissertation Series in Kindle and Nook is Michael O'Neal's study of the BVI in history and anthropology Slavery, Smallholding and Tourism; a paperback next week at those sites too.

[Alan Childress]

New book 'Hot Topics in the Legal Profession - 2012' and old classic 'The Bramble Bush'

As promised last weekend, I announce a book truly on-topic for LPB. This is a collection of essays, on ethics and broader issues of the U.S. profession, from students in my Advanced Professional Responsibility Seminar last year. I added an intro but really the substance is in their 14 chapters. Their topics include:

...false guilty pleas and candor to the court, ethical considerations in keeping the client's files as a digital record, legal outsourcing and competition, the dilemma of student debt in a slowed legal economy, the practice of law by legal websites like LegalZoom, the capital defense of Jared Lee Loughner, Justice Scalia's constitutional seminar for conservative congressmembers, sensitivity to "cultural competence" in legal education and practice, prosecutorial relationships with key witnesses, bar discipline for behavior outside the practice of law, negotiation ethics, hybridized MDL settlements, and the advocate-witness rule.

It is available now in paperback at Amazon or the QP page; plus such eBooks as Kindle and Nook, and at Apple iBooks and iTunes bookstores. Proceeds benefit Tulane's Public Interest Law Foundation, so even if it is not a book you'd buy or download for yourself, please consider asking the law library to acquire a paperback.

Also out is the eBook of an old but amazingly relevant book of advice for prelaw and 1L law students, Karl Llewellyn's The Bramble Bush (e.g., in Kindle). I was pretty amazed he discussed active learning, visualizing case facts, better note-taking, and a script for case-briefing and the uses of precedent. Still is a perennial recommended read for the summer before law school, on lots of lists. This classic had not been released in eBooks before today. Sort of odd how little 1L classes and reading have changed.

[Alan Childress]

New book on history of slaves' freedom and manumission lawsuits in the U.S. South

Posted by Alan Childress

Not a legal profession book, to be sure, but perhaps of interest to LPB readers is a new book from the Quid Pro project, Andrew Fede's Roadblocks to Freedom. It just came out in paperback, Kindle, Nook, and Apple iBooks formats, and by Monday in hardback. It is called "...the most comprehensive study of the law of manumission ever written" and "a must read for anyone interested in the legal history of slavery in the American South." More soon on a book decidedly about the U.S. legal profession and legal ethics.

Update: Harvard Law Review's Supreme Court survey issue now also an ebook in Kindle, Nook, Apple formats

Just an update to my post this weekend about Yale L.J. Yesterday, Harvard L. Rev. also added its first ebook edition of the academic year--its annual special issue on the Supreme Court last term. In addition to extensive summaries of major cases of the 2010 Term, the issue features a substantive Foreword by Dan Kahan and an article by Judith Resnik. Its ebook formats (Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook; or at Apple iBooks) have linked notes, tables, and cross-references. [Alan Childress]

Yale Law Journal adds Kindle, Nook & Apple ebook editions, 99c

The Quid Pro Books project (here), which includes new ebooks in addition to paperbacks, has worked with the editors of the Yale Law Journal to bring out in leading digital formats its 8 print issues per year. That is, particularly, downloads at Amazon for Kindle, B&N for Nook, and direct on iPad/iPhone at Apple iBooks. The student editors decided to price each issue at 99 cents (the minimum such sites allow to indy presses) to make it as accessible as possible--I applaud that--and to help people read each issue as a whole, like a book for the commute or for kicking back. The ebooks are fully formatted, with links for contents, notes, and even cross-references.

More for the philosophy and torts types than legal ethics teachers, perhaps, the first issue of academic year 2011-12, out today, has a summary by Jules Coleman of how jurisprudence is analyzed and structured--a clear synthesis that may turn out to be required introductory reading in the field--as well as a dialog on torts between Ariel Porat and Mark Geistfeld. Plus students have contributed notes on felon disenfranchisement and counter-terrorism. Issue two should follow in a week or two and can be found at the links above too.

All 56 books or journals in the project produced since May 2010 can be found online (including guttenburgy print for the books), for example in this comprehensive Kindle list. Most recent, besides YLJ, is Lawrence Friedman's Contract Law in America, reviewed by NYU's Dan Ernst at Legal History Blog. Friedman's latest book is The Human Rights Culture, on the sociology of the movement.

Please consider letting FB friends or Twitter followers know this new way to access YLJ. [Alan Childress]

Reissue with new introduction of Michael Meltsner's Cruel and Unusual on lawyering against the death penalty

Posted by Alan Childress

After the renewed attention lately on the death penalty from the execution of Troy Davis, including this moving faith-based Huffington Post column on that matter by Stephen Dear, I wanted to mention, as has the StandDown Texas blog, the reissue of Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment. It's Michael Meltsner's inside account of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers who set out to abolish the death penalty. Their decade-sought victory, if impermanent, was a methodical and fascinating tale of strategy, perseverence, and people--ending with the Supreme Court's 1972 ruling in Furman v. Georgia. (BTW, Justice Stevens says he regrets his later vote to reinstate capital punishment.)

The 2011 edition has a new Foreword by CUNY's Evan Mandery and a new, reflective preface by the author (a law prof at Northeastern and its former dean). As StandDown notes, I worked with Michael to bring this back to print. It's now out in a variety of formats: Amazon as a paperback or for Kindle; at Barnes & Noble for Nook and in paperback; PDF at Smashwords; also on Apple iBooks and at Sony. The ebooks should be convenient for people worldwide who have not had access to this classic book as a hardback edition.

Jerome Carlin on the Solo Practitioner's Practice and Ethics: Lawyers on Their Own

Posted by Alan Childress

At the Quid Pro project, we republished Jerry Carlin's classic sociological/ethics study of solo practitioners, Lawyers on Their Own. Through extensive interviews and empirics, he exposed what then was a hidden, and somewhat desperate, reality--and influenced this kind of research in the profession and its subgroups. Dr. Carlin, who became a full-time artist after serving as director of a legal aid association in SF, contributed the amazing cover art. And Bill Gallager, a law prof and ethics teacher at Golden Gate, wrote a new Introduction on the book's lessons and scholarly impact. I thought this would be of interest to blog readers. The book is a new paperback at Amazon, and also in ebook: Kindle, B&N Nook, Smashwords, and Apple iBooks formats.

Not on topic, but just fyi, Stanford Law Review and QP released to Kindle, Nook, and Apple formats the SLR's latest issue, which is a symposium on patent law and its future after  Bilski v. Kappos. Subjects include business methods and biotech IP, and the writers are such internationally known IP scholars as John Duffy and Mark Lemley. ...Also at Kindle, Nook, SW and Apple (and Aug 25 in print) is Michael Meltsner's account of how his team at the NAACP Inc. Fund took on the death penalty in a 9-year campaign, and won (for a while, at least). It's his book Cruel and Unusual, first published by Random House; it became our 50th book published since April 2010.

As to Mike's post on paying bar dues from the trust account, I recall that Nancy Rapoport once called such a move the bar equivalent of a kick-me sign.

Civil Law Dictionary Translates Common Law to Civil Law and Back

Part of the Quid Pro publishing project, the Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary defines every word or phrase contained in the index to the Louisiana Civil Code, plus others--and provides current citations to statutes, code, and cases. Just out in paperback (from here; or Amazon now), plus hardback and ebook formats linked below. Though most obviously for Louisiana students and lawyers, common law practitioners in other states may find uses for a dictionary that translates civil law terminology into familiar concepts; and the civil law dominates the world's legal systems. The dictionary's dedicated website is here.

The ebook formats feature linked notes and hundreds of linked cross-references for association of related topics. They are at Amazon for Kindle; at B&N for Nook; and on Apple iBooks (previewed here). In addition to the paperbacks linked above, there is a new hardback edition that libararies and resellers can order through the usual catalogs, and also is now sold really cheap at Barnes & Noble at essentially the paperback price. Hope this is useful.

--Alan Childress

Harvard Law Review adds eBook editions: Kindle, Nook & iPad formats

Posted by Alan Childress

The newest issue of the Harvard Law Review (number 7, May) is now available in ebook formats at Amazon Kindle (and Amazon UK), at Barnes & Noble for Nook, and on iPad using such apps or soon at iTunes bookstore. It's out of the Quid Pro Books digital project [as regular readers of this blog might guess]. My recollection is that there was a time -- before technology and budget cuts -- when many individuals, not just libraries, ordered copies of favorite law reviews (or had issues routed to them) and read each issue like a book. In a way, the ereader technology puts it back together again as a whole and makes the volume easily available to individual readers, even on the go (or especially on the go, for trains and planes), and on devices tiny and large. Having HLR available this way is in a sense "traditional," or at least could become a new tradition to non-institutional readers, I believe.

Number 7's contents:

Article, "Article III and the Scottish Judiciary," by James E. Pfander and Daniel D. Birk

Book Review, "Constitutional Alarmism," by Trevor W. Morrison

Note, "A Justification for Allowing Fragmentation in Copyright"  

Note, "Taxing Partnership Profits Interests: The Carried Interest Problem"

Recent Case, "Corporate Law — Principal’s Liability for Agent’s Conduct"

Recent Case, "Administrative Law — Retroactive Rules"
 
Recent Case, "Federal Preemption of State Law — Implied Preemption"

Recent Case, "Labor Law — LMRA"

Recent Legislation, "Corporate Law — Securities Regulation"

Recent Publications

UPDATE: Nice squib from Paul Caron at TaxProf.