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

Editorial Consultants:

This issue of Books-on-Law returns to Edward Lazarus's book, Closed Chambers, by way of an extended comment from Judge Alex Kozinski, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The overall exchange will continue in our July issue when Edward Lazarus responds to his critics. This month's Book Review section also features reviews touching a variety of topics, including constitutional law, employment law, jurisprudence, family law, technology and privacy, and tax law.  Additionally, Lincoln Caplan reviews Ken Gormley's biography of Archibald Cox.

Past-Perfect celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Alexander Meiklejohn's Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government (Harper & Brothers).  We republish a 1948 review of that book, which first appeared in The New Republic, authored by the late scholar and syndicated columnist Max Lerner.  John P. Frank--one of the great constitutional lawyers of our time--comments on Lerner's review and Meiklejohn's work.  Mr. Frank was first a student and later a friend of Alexander Meiklejohn.

It is a work done in the spirit of Dennis Diderot's famous eighteenth-century encyclopedia.  It boasts three volumes, 410 original articles, and 2,500 pages.  It is coming soon.  It is The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law.   This massive set is edited by Peter Newman, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

According to the publisher, the set brings together "340 top minds in the fields of economics and law, including Nobel laureates in economics and eminent legal scholars."  Scholars such as Jennifer Arlen (USC Law), Ronald H. Coase (University of Chicago Law), Melvin Aron Eisenberg (UC-Berkeley Law), William M. Landes (University of Chicago Law), Robert H. Mnookin (Harvard Law), Richard Posner (7^th Cir.), George L. Priest (Yale Law), Susan Rose-Ackerman (Yale Law), Kenneth E. Scott (Stanford Law), and Michelle J. White (University of Michigan) join in insider-trading, game theory, gun control, free speech, divorce, and a bevy of other subjects.  The work also includes over 30 biographies of key thinkers in the field.  The set is published by Grove Dictionaries Inc., located in New York, NY.  Oh yes, the price?   $550.00.

She was the first African-American woman appointed to the U.S. District Court.   Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1921, Constance Baker Motley graduated from Columbia University Law School and later served with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (1945-1965).  She was the first African-American woman elected to the New York State Senate.  President Johnson nominated her in 1966 for a seat on the federal bench for the Southern District of New York.  Linn Washington, in her book Black Judges on Justice (The New Press, 1995), lists Judge Motley as one of the great pioneers in law's battle for equal justice.  All of this and more, much more, is recounted in Judge Motley's soon-to-be-published book, Equal Justice Under Law: An Autobiography (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998) (cloth: $30.00; pp. 400).

Judge Richard Posner a "Crit?"  Well, sort of.  That is, think of him as the ringleader of the Critical Literary Studies movement.  The newly revised and enlarged edition of his Law and Literature (Harvard University Press, second edition 1998) suggests as much.  Says Anthony Julius, writing in the Times Literary Supplement (May 8, 1998, p. 27): "[A]ttempting to understand the law and literature movement through the lens of this book is a bit like trying to grasp the doctrines of heretics through the attacks on them by the Christian orthodox."   Some may see irony in the fact that Judge Posner's book is among the most widely read in the field.  Yet, he is not a "true believer."  Again, Julius: "His writing is influenced by the language of markets and rational choice . . . . In places Law and Literature is a 'literature and economics' book."   Critical as the Judge may be of the Law and Literature movement, in the new edition he nonetheless declares: "Readers should not infer from my emphasis on the limitations of the law and literature movement that my overall attitude toward it is negative."   True?  You be the judge.

The July issue of Books-on-Law will include: "Two Takes on MacKinnon & Dworkin," with Robert Jensen (University of Texas Journalism) and Wendy McElroy (free-lance author) writing separate and very different reviews of Catharine A. MacKinnon & Andrea Dworkin, editors, In Harm's Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearing (Harvard University Press, 1997)

In addition, other reviews to be featured include:

• Margaret Davies (Flinders University of South Australia), reviewing Stephen M. Griffin & Robert C.L. Moffat, editors, Radical Critiques of the Law (University Press of Kansas, 1997)
  
• M. Ethan Katsh, reviewing Mike Godwin, Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age (Time Books, 1998)
  

• Jill J. Ramsfield, reviewing Myra A. Harris, Legal Research: FUN-damental Principles (Prentice Hall, 1997) and Myra A. Harris, Legal Writing: Principles of Juriography (Prentice Hall, 1997)
  
• Christopher Slobogin, reviewing Bruce J. Winick, The Right to Refuse Mental Health Treatment (American Psychological Association, 1997)
  
• Jon Weinberg, reviewing Robert Corn-Revere, editor, Rationales & Rationalizations: Regulating the Electronic Media (The Media Institute, 1997)
  
• Melvin I. Urofsky, reviewing David M. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Past (Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Distinctions

We are pleased to note that Books-on-Law was recently selected by The Scout Report as a noteworthy research & education site.  Check out the notice given to us in the May 22 issue of The Scout Report.

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: 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 California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall); 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

© Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover, 1998. —————————————————————————————
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© Bernard J. Hibbitts, 1998. All rights reserved. These pages may not be copied, reposted, or republished, in whole or in part, electronically or in print, without express written permission.

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