Americans have long been identified as a people of law and lawyers with an addiction to lawsuits. In Litigation Nation, Peter Charles Hoffer, one of America’s most preeminent legal historians, charts the history of civil litigation from the seventeenth century to the present, using key cases pursued by ordinary people to illustrate how the civil courts have been a battlefront to contest the boundaries of permissible personal conduct in times of social and political change. Using representative case studies from each period—from defamation suits in seventeenth-century America to recent civil rights and gender discrimination lawsuits, Hoffer’s concise and accessible history shows how litigation reflects the lives and values of ordinary Americans.
"Burke drills deep into America's unique culture of litigation and is rewarded with a powerful insight: it is not the public or even lawyers that are so darn litigious, but American law itself. This meticulous, dispassionate book stands not only to advance the debate but—I hope—to reshape it."—Jonathan Rauch, author of Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working "Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights is a fascinating study of the American penchant for public policies that rely on lawsuits to get things done. Burke's analysis is insightful and original. This book compellingly shows that litigious policies have deep roots in our Constitution, culture, and politics."—Charles Epp, author of The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective "Burke's authoritative book demonstrates that the highly litigious American system is not an isolated anomaly but in fact fits in with deeply-rooted elements of American political culture. Where citizens of other countries rely on expert or bureaucratic judgment to resolve disputes, Americans turn to the courts. Equally novel and compelling, Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights marshals an impressive set of evidence and delivers a refreshingly well-written look at the state of American litigation."—Frank R. Baumgartner, co-author of Agendas and Instability in American Politics
This is a review of the book Litigation Nation: A Cultural History of Lawsuits in America. The book provides an understanding of U.S. history through the lens of civil litigation as a narrative of political and social change in America.
Twenty years ago, Americans saw lawsuits as a last resort; now they're the world's most litigous people. One of the most discussed, debated, and widely reviewed books of 1991, The Litigation Explosion explains why today's laws encourage us to sue first and ask questions later.
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Written on the occasion of copyright's 300th anniversary, John Tehranian's Infringement Nation presents an engaging and accessible analysis of the history and evolution of copyright law and its profound impact on the lives of ordinary individuals in the twenty-first century. Organized around the trope of the individual in five different copyright-related contexts - as an infringer, transformer, pure user, creator and reformer - the book charts the changing contours of our copyright regime and assesses its vitality in the digital age. In the process, Tehranian questions some of our most basic assumptions about copyright law by highlighting the unseemly amount of infringement liability an average person rings up in a single day, the counterintuitive role of the fair use doctrine in radically expanding the copyright monopoly, the important expressive interests at play in even the unauthorized use of copyright works, the surprisingly low level of protection that American copyright law grants many creators, and the broader political import of copyright law on the exertion of social regulation and control. Drawing upon both theory and the author's own experiences representing clients in various high-profile copyright infringement suits, Tehranian supports his arguments with a rich array of diverse examples crossing various subject matters - from the unusual origins of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the question of numeracy among Amazonian hunter-gatherers, the history of stand-offs at papal nunciatures, and the tradition of judicial plagiarism to contemplations on Slash's criminal record, Barbie's retroussé nose, the poisonous tomato, flag burning, music as a form of torture, the smell of rotting film, William Shakespeare as a man of the people, Charles Dickens as a lobbyist, Ashley Wilkes's sexual orientation, Captain Kirk's reincarnation, and Holden Caulfield's maturation. In the end, Infringement Nation makes a sophisticated yet lucid case for reform of existing doctrine and the development of a copyright 2.0.
Explores the critical role that American lawyers have played since the nation’s founding and what the future holds for the profession The American legal profession faces significant challenges: the changing nature of work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic; calls for greater racial and gender justice; threats to democracy; the inaccessibility of legal services for the majority of Americans; the risk of obsolescence owing to the emergence of new technologies; and the disaffection many lawyers feel toward their work. Ambitious in its scope yet straightforward in its approach, Lawyer Nation seeks to address these crises by offering a path forward for the legal profession. Ray Brescia provides concrete ideas for transforming law into a field whose services are accessible, egalitarian, and viable in the long term. Further, he addresses how the profession can improve so that the health of its practitioners is not compromised in the process. If the legal profession does not respond to its crises in an effective way, he argues, the dysfunction and unfairness plaguing the legal world will deepen. This is an unprecedented opportunity for the world of law to reimagine its future in way that honors its highest ideals: preserving the rule of law, protecting individual liberty, and addressing social inequality in all of its forms.
The renowned attorney and bestselling author reveals how notable trials throughout our history have helped to shape our nation. Offering insights into the human condition, these trials serve as a historical document, chronicling the struggles and passions of their time.
