F. Daniel Frost and the Rise of the Modern American Law Firm
F. Daniel Frost and the Rise of the Modern American Law Firm

Author: Toni Marie Massaro

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781888965117

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This biography of F. Daniel Frost, whose life and work are most closely associated with the expansion of the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher from the 1960s through the 1980s, is also a tale of the transformation of the American legal profession during that era. Macro histories offer one important window into this rich chapter of the profession’s history, and personal narratives of the most ambitious and high-profile leaders offer still another. This book is written from Dan Frost’s viewpoint as an exceptionally influential private lawyer who shaped a major California firm throughout the second half of the last century. During this dynamic time in the saga of the profession, the rise of California’s law firms was a crucial component. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher today is a global entity, with offices and influence in every major economic hub in the world, but when Frost joined the firm it still was a small, essentially regional institution. He was a witness to, and became a central architect of, the firm’s dramatic evolution thereafter. The foundations of Frost’s success included his family, education, and public service background, as well as the historical, economic, and geographical context in which he lived. During this time, California’s major industries, universities, cultural centers, and sheer geographic expanse and natural beauty established her as the nation’s other coast—rivaling, and in some respects defeating, the venerable East Coast in influence, affluence, and dynamism. Frost’s career holds valuable lessons for legal historians, California historians, and lawyers of any era. His life also offers insights for his professional and personal descendants, as Frost respected and sought to preserve the firm’s history and became a student of western history, spending many years capturing the history of his pioneer ancestors. This account is aimed at illuminating Dan Frost’s role in the evolving firm and family history and will enable his professional and personal descendants to find themselves in the ongoing evolution of a pioneer law firm and a pioneer family. They may glimpse their own trajectory as they reflect on the life of this western lawyer, professional leader, entrepreneur, and philanthropist—a journey that continues today.

Lawyers as Leaders
Lawyers as Leaders

Author: Deborah L. Rhode

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-11

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0199896224

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Why do we look to lawyers to lead, and why do so many of them prove to be so untrustworthy and unprepared? In Lawyers as Leaders, eminent law professor Deborah Rhode not only answers these questions but crafts an essential manual for attorneys who need to develop better leadership skills.

Jews and the Law
Jews and the Law

Author: Ari Mermelstein

Publisher: Quid Pro Books

Published: 2014-06-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1610272285

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Jews are a people of law, and law defines who the Jewish people are and what they believe. This anthology engages with the growing complexity of what it is to be Jewish — and, more problematically, what it means to be at once Jewish and participate in secular legal systems as lawyers, judges, legal thinkers, civil rights advocates, and teachers. The essays in this book trace the history and chart the sociology of the Jewish legal profession over time, revealing new stories and dimensions of this significant aspect of the American Jewish experience and at the same time exploring the impact of Jewish lawyers and law firms on American legal practice. “This superb collection reveals what an older focus on assimilation obscured. Jewish lawyers wanted to ‘make it,’ but they also wanted to make law and the legal profession different and better. These fascinating essays show how, despite considerable obstacles, they succeeded.” — Daniel R. Ernst Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center Author of Tocqueville’s Nightmare: The Administrative State Emerges in America, 1900-1940 “This fascinating collection of essays by distinguished scholars illuminates the distinctive and intricate relationship between Jews and law. Exploring the various roles of Jewish lawyers in the United States, Germany, and Israel, they reveal how the practice of law has variously expressed, reinforced, or muted Jewish identity as lawyers demonstrated their commitments to the public interest, social justice, Jewish tradition, or personal ambition. Any student of law, lawyers, or Jewish values will be engaged by the questions asked and answered.” — Jerold S. Auerbach Professor Emeritus of History, Wellesley College Author of Unequal Justice and Rabbis and Lawyers

The Religion of Democracy
The Religion of Democracy

Author: Amy Kittelstrom

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2016-04-05

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0143108131

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A history of religion’s role in the American liberal tradition through the eyes of seven transformative thinkers Today we associate liberal thought and politics with secularism. When we argue over whether the nation’s founders meant to keep religion out of politics, the godless side is said to be liberal. But the role of religion in American politics has always been far less simplistic than today’s debates would suggest. In The Religion of Democracy, historian Amy Kittelstrom shows how religion and democracy have worked together as universal ideals in American culture—and as guides to moral action and to the social practice of treating one another as equals who deserve to be free. The first people in the world to call themselves “liberals” were New England Christians in the early republic. Inspired by their religious belief in a God-given freedom of conscience, these Americans enthusiastically embraced the democratic values of equality and liberty, giving shape to the liberal tradition that would remain central to our politics and our way of life. The Religion of Democracy re-creates the liberal conversation from the eighteenth century to the twentieth by tracing the lived connections among seven transformative thinkers through what they read and wrote, where they went, whom they knew, and how they expressed their opinions—from John Adams to William James to Jane Addams; from Boston to Chicago to Berkeley. Sweeping and ambitious, The Religion of Democracy is a lively narrative of quintessentially American ideas as they were forged, debated, and remade across our history.