Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Lawyers & Judges

Elena Kagan can be considered a "wild card" in terms of how she will vote and affect Supreme Court decisions. While largely considered a liberal, her lack of a judicial "track record" and previous work as Solicitor General lend an air of uncertainty as to how she will react to upcoming cases that have proven highly divisive and controversial.

This full-length biography sheds light on Elena Kagan's life, covering her college years at Princeton and her experience in law school as well as her legal career, which eventually led her to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Appropriate for high...

One of the least publicly recognized heroes of the civil rights movement in the United States, John Minor Wisdom served as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1957 until his death in 1999 and wrote many of the landmark decisions instrumental in desegregating the American South. In this revealing biography, law professor Joel William Friedman explores Judge Wisdom's substantial legal contributions and political work at a critical time in the history of the South.

In 1957, President Eisenhower appointed Wisdom to the Fifth Circuit, which included some of the...

..".You thought that we actually take the rules seriously? No way, not in the world of fear and compromise that we rattle around in. ... Rules and principals are useful to us, just like great teeth, a pretty face and a mouth full of promises are useful to a politician... Lawyers are concerned with results, judges are concerned with clearing cases from their dockets, and cities are concerned with image. Principles like what's right and what's wrong often take a back seat to those priorities. Alex Zouzoulas, Courtroom Confidential

..".You thought that we actually take the rules seriously? No way, not in the world of fear and compromise that we rattle around in. ... Rules and principals are useful to us, just like great teeth, a pretty face and a mouth full of promises are useful to a politician... Lawyers are concerned with results, judges are concerned with clearing cases from their dockets, and cities are concerned with image. Principles like what's right and what's wrong often take a back seat to those priorities. Alex Zouzoulas, Courtroom Confidential

Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948) was lawyer, governor of New York, Supreme Court Justice, presidential candidate in 1916, Secretary of State in the Harding and Coolidge administrations, a member of the World Court, and Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 until his retirement in 1941. To some, Hughes appeared larger than life. Robert H. Jackson once said of him, " He] looks like God and talks like God." But to those who knew him well, he was quite human, extraordinarily gifted, but human nonetheless. His Autobiographical Notes portray him as no biography could and provide...