• This Month’s Issue
• Can We Help Publish Your Book?
• Legal Writing as an Art Form
• Law & the Reasonable Woman
• Forthcoming

Welcome to the new millennium! . . . at least for those of you who are not sticklers for the 2001 date. And welcome, as well, to a new year of reviews in Books-on-Law!

This century we start off with two "specials."  First, we are proud to offer our third lineup of "Jurists on JURIST."  Our first such issue of reviews by judges appeared in our inaugural April 1998 issue, and the second appeared in the January 1999 issue.  This time, Louis H. Pollak (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania) examines a work on the historical role of the U.S. Attorneys General in interpreting the federal Constitution.  Then, Nancy Gertner (Maryland Court of Appeals) writes on a book that critiques the federal sentencing system.  John C. Godbold (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit) reviews a book that encourages lawyers to reach a more fulfilling balance in their professional and personal lives, followed by a reply from the author, Steven Keeva.  Finally, Adolpho A. Birch, Jr. (Tennessee Supreme Court) opines on a work that explores the impacts of race and class in the American criminal justice system. 

Our second "special" focuses on the operations of the First Amendment at the margins of what generally is regarded as protected speech.  Robert M. O'Neil puts the Skokie experience into perspective in his review of a book on hate speech.  Wrapping things up, Ronald Collins writes an essay on Lenny Bruce and obscenity law.

We invite your views, so talk back to us.  Also, be sure to check out our archives file to see the more than 100 reviews that we have published since 1997.  As for some of the new books to be published in the Y2K, check out Book Notices.

So you want to publish a book, a scholarly or trade book related to the law.  Maybe even a legal novel?  If you are such a soul (had it with law review writing?), then you may want to start by clicking onto the Publishers link.  There you will find a variety of scholarly presses (including Cambridge, Harvard, N.Y.U., Oxford, Princeton, Temple, and U.N.C.) and trade publishers (including Beacon Press, Knopf, Routledge, Rowman & Littlefiled, and Simon & Schuster).

Or maybe you prefer trying to work with an agent.  If so, there are a number of resources on the Web, including Authorlink, Literary Market Place, the Creighton University site for writers, LiteraryAgent.Com, Guide to Literary Agents, WritersNet, and still other online resources.

Most writers consider Jeff Herman's Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents, 1999-2000: Who They Are! What They Want! And How to Win Them Over! (Prima Publications) to be the leading book on the topic.

If you're more adventurous, e-mail us (Ronald Collins or David Skover) a 250-word summary (not 251 or over, please) of your book/proposed book.  If we like it, we'll check back with you about posting a more extended description/proposal on Books-on-Law.  We'll also notify several publishers of the posting.  The cost?  No charge. Pro bono. Gratis. Nothing!  We're in it for you.  

It is a wonderful line, that old Fred Rodell quip: There are only two things wrong with legal writing: one is style, the other is content.  Anyone who has had the joy of reading legal documents – be they contracts or constitutions – can readily understand the truth in Rodell's humor.  But, Georgetown University Law Professor Jill J. Ramsfield aims to change that – she wants to change legal writing into, well, an art form. 

Just as architects design buildings to meet specific purposes and cater to their clients' needs, so do lawyers design documents.  Thus, lawyers can produce good legal writing by studying it as an art form.  Essentially, that is the idea behind Professor Ramsfield's soon-to-be-published book, Law as Architecture: Building Legal Documents (West 2000).

"We can design as architects do: by interviewing clients, understanding the products they have in mind, and designing documents accordingly.  By coordinating form and function, structure and style, we can create harmonious, unified documents that are accurate and elegant," says Ramsfield.   Such an understanding, she believes, will allow - even encourage - writers to "build a repertoire of techniques, designs, and strategies" to improve the style and substance of any form of legal writing.  

Law as Architecture invites its readers to understand the practical dimensions of preparing a document, i.e., the exigencies of the document's setting, and the technical details of its legal limitations.  All can be "designed" appropriately.  In other words, we can use the same kind of care and expertise in creating accessible and enduring documents that architects do in creating buildings.

Professor Ramsfield is also the author of Legal Writing: Getting It Right and Getting It Written (West, 1993), and has likewise written for Books-on-Law.  [For a book of a generally similar order, consider Paul Wijdeveld's Ludwig Wittgenstein, Architect (MIT Press, 1994) (applying the lessons of philosophy to architecture).]

Remember when you were in law school and people hissed whenever the professor used the phrase "reasonable man?"  In time this old man of the law died (sans any formal eulogy) and was replaced by the "reasonable person."  Well, times and terms continue to change: it is now the era of the "reasonable woman" (or at least it should be, some argue).

Enter Caroline Forell and Donna Matthews (an Oregon lawyer) with A Law of Her Own: The Reasonable Woman As a Measure of Man (New York University Press, 2000) (ISBN: 0814726763).  In A Law of Her Own, the authors set out to change radically the law's traditional paradigm of rational behavior.  They call for a "reasonable woman standard" for measuring men's behavior.  A woman-based legal standard focusing on respect for bodily integrity, agency, and autonomy, they contend, would help rectify the imbalance in how society and its legal system view sexual and gender‑based harassment, rape, stalking, battery, domestic imprisonment, violence, and death.  Advocating that courts apply this standard to the conduct of men - and women - in legal settings where women are overwhelmingly the injured parties, the authors seek to eliminate the victimization and objectification of women by dismantling part of the legal structure that supports their subordination.

Examining the bias of the existing "reasonable person" standard by analyzing various court cases and judicial decisions, Forell and Matthews aim to balance the law to incorporate women's values surrounding sex and violence. (In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada declared: "The 'reasonable woman' must not be forgotten in the analysis, and deserves to be as much a part of the objective standard of the reasonable person as does the 'reasonable man.'")

A Law of Her Own consists of 12 chapters covering, among other things, topics such as the "meaning of equality," sexual harassment in the workplace, stalking, rape, and domestic homicide.  The book will be available in bookstores soon.

For another book on this general theme, consider The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival (Prometheus Books, 1998) by Wendy McElroy.  See also the following website for a discussion of Ellen Goodman's essay, "The Reasonable Woman Standard."  Finally, for a defense of the "unreasonable man," consider George Bernard Shaw's literary statement.

In February, the following reviews are scheduled to appear:

• Jennifer Brown, reviewing Linda Hirshman, A Woman's Guide to Law School (Penguin Books, 1999)
• Neil Cogan, reviewing Leonard W. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights (Yale University Press, 1999)
• Calvin Massey, reviewing Linda Przybyszewski, The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan (University of North Carolina Press, 1999)
• Joel Reidenberg, reviewing Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
• Margaret Woo, reviewing Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation State (New York University Press, 1999)

Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, Editors, Books-on-Law

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JURIST: Books-on-Law™ is edited by Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover of the Seattle University School of Law.

Board of Editorial Consultants: Raj Bhala, George Washington University Law School; Miriam Galston, George Washington University Law School; Kermit Hall, Ohio State University College of Law; Yale Kamisar, University of Michigan Law School; Lisa G. Lerman, Catholic University of America School of Law; David M. O'Brien, University of Virginia Department of Government and Foreign Affairs; Judith Resnik, Yale Law School; Edwin L. Rubin, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Steven H. Shriffrin, Cornell Law School; Nadine Strossen, New York Law School; David B. Wilkins, Harvard Law School.

Administrative Assistant for Books-on-Law: Ms. Nancy Ammons
Technical Assistant for Books-on-Law: Steven Pacillio, Esq.

© Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover, 2000.