This 2004 book is a comparative study of the American legaldevelopment in the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on Illinois andVirginia, supported by observations from six additional states, thebook traces the crucial formative moment in the development of anAmerican system of common law in northern and southern courts. Theprocess of legal development, and the form the basic analyticalcategories of American law came to have, are explained as theproducts of different responses to the challenge of new industrialtechnologies, particularly railroads. The nature of those responseswas dictated by the ideologies that accompanied the social,political, and economic orders of the two regions. American commonlaw, ultimately, is found to express an emerging model ofcitizenship, appropriate to modern conditions. As a result, theprocess of legal development provides an illuminating perspectiveon the character of American political thought in a formativeperiod of the nation.

An examination of privacy and the evolution of communication,from broken sealing wax to high-tech wiretapping A sweeping story of the right to privacy as it sped alongcolonial postal routes, telegraph wires, and even today’sfiber-optic cables, American Privacy traces the lineage of culturalnorms and legal mandates that have swirled around the FourthAmendment since its adoption. Legally, technologically, andhistorically grounded, Frederick Lane’s book presents a vivid andpenetrating exploration that, in the words of people’s historianHoward Zinn, “challenges us to defendour most basic rights.”--Fromthe Trade Paperback edition.

Computers and the Law provides readers with an introduction tothe legal issues associated with computing – particularly in themassively networked context of the Internet. Assuming no previousknowledge of the law or any special knowledge of programming orcomputer science, this textbook offers undergraduates of alldisciplines and professionals in the computing industry anunderstanding of basic legal principles and an awareness of thepeculiarities associated with legal issues in cyberspace. This isnot a law school casebook, but rather a variety of carefullychosen, relevant cases presented in redacted form. The full casesare available on an ancillary Web site. The pervasiveness ofcomputing in modern society has generated numerous legalambiguities. This book introduces readers to the fundamentalworkings of the law in physical space and suggests the opportunityto create new types of laws with nontraditional goals.

This is primarily a textbook for graduate and upper-levelundergraduate students of law. However, practising lawyers andpolicy-makers who are looking for an introduction to WTO law willalso find it invaluable. The book covers both the institutional andsubstantive law of the WTO. While the treatment of the law is oftenquite detailed, the main aim of this textbook is to make clear thebasic principles and underlying logic of WTO law and the worldtrading system. Each section contains questions and assignments, toallow students to assess their understanding and develop usefulpractical skills. At the end of each chapter there is a helpfulsummary, as well as an exercise on specific, true-to-lifeinternational trade problems.

This 2005 book argues that Europeanization and globalizationhave led to ever-more intensive legalization at transnationallevel. What accounts for compliance beyond the nation-state? Theauthors tackle this question by comparing compliance withregulations that have been formulated in a very similar way atdifferent levels of governance. They test compliance with rules atthe national level, at the regional level (EU), and at a globallevel (WTO), finding that in fact the EU has higher levels ofcompliance than both international and national rules. The authorsargue that this is because the EU has a higher level oflegalization, combined with effective monitoring mechanisms andsanctions. In this respect it seems that the European Union hasindeed achieved a high level of legalization and compliance, thoughthe authors add that this achievement does not settle the relatedqueries with the legitimacy of transnational governance andlaw.

From prosecuting (and defending) murderers in the Bronx tohandling the public and private problems of Manhattan’s elite, Mouthpiece recounts the colorful adventures of New YorkCity’s ultimate legal operator. “In the pages before us, the Counselor tells a saga’s worth oftales of the city. As the saying goes, he’s got a million ofthem.” — Tom Wolfe, from his Introduction Edward Hayes is that unusual combination: the likable lawyer, onewho could have stepped off the stages of Guys and Dolls or Chicago . Mouthpiece is his story—an irreverent,entertaining, and revealing look at the practice of law in moderntimes and a social and political anatomy of New York City. Itrecounts Hayes’s childhood in the tough Irish sections of Queensand his eventual escape to the University of Virginia and then toColumbia Law School. Not at all white-shoe-firm material, Hayesheaded to the hair-raising, crime-ridden South Bronx of themidseventies—first as a homicide prosecutor and then as a defenseattor

There is no more powerful, detested, misunderstood AfricanAmerican in our public life than Clarence Thomas. SupremeDiscomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas is a hauntingportrait of an isolated and complex man, savagely reviled by muchof the black community, not entirely comfortable in white society,internally wounded by his passage from a broken family and ruralpoverty in Georgia, to elite educational institutions, to thepinnacle of judicial power. His staunchly conservative positions oncrime, abortion, and, especially, affirmative action have exposedhim to charges of heartlessness and hypocrisy, in that he ishimself the product of a broken home who manifestly benefited fromracially conscious admissions policies. Supreme Discomfort is a superbly researched and reportedwork that features testimony from friends and foes alike who havenever spoken in public about Thomas before—including a candidconversation with his fellow justice and ideological ally, AntoninScalia. It offers a long-overdue windo

A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution s primary role is to preserve and encouragewhat he calls active liberty : citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.

The Religious Right has dedicated much of the last thirty years to molding the federal judiciary, always with an eye toward casting the Supreme Court in its image. Through broad political work that has involved grassroots campaigns as much as aggressive lobbying, and a welltended career path for conservative law students and attorneys, the Right has been incredibly effective in influencing major Court decisions on everything from laws banning prayer in school to women's secure access to abortion and birth control. How will the courts set in place in recent decades confront stem cell research, gay rights, or euthanasia in a new era? In The Court and the Cross, attorney and legal journalist Frederick Lane draws on legal history and savvy political analysis to expose, in layperson's terms, the Religious Right's unrelenting efforts to declare the United States a Christian nation.

Co-edited and introduced by Toni Morrison, winner of the NobelPrize in Literature, Birth of a Nation'hood elucidates as neverbefore the grim miasma of the O.J. Simpson case, which has elicitedgargantuan fascination. As they pertain to the scandal, the issues of race, sex,violence, money, and the media are refracted through twelvepowerful essays that have been written especially for this book bydistinguished intellectuals--black and white, male and female.Together these keen analyses of a defining American moment cast achilling gaze on the * and spectacle of the insidious tensionsthat rend our society, even as they ponder the proper historical,cultural, political, legal, psychological, and linguisticramifications of the affair. With contributions by: Toni Morrison, George Lipsitz, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., withAderson Bellegarde Francois and Linda Y. Yueh, Nikol G. Alexanderand Drucilla Cornell, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Ishmael Reed,Leola Johnson and David Roediger, Andrew Ross, P