• Books,  Featured,  Fiction

    Lisa McElroy’s fun novel Called On “may be this generation’s One L

    “Lisa McElroy perfectly captures the pressures, challenges, and triumphs of both teaching and studying the law. Filled with big, memorable personalities, Called On is an utterly charming depiction of the 1L experience.” — Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of The Ex “McElroy nails law school—from first-day jitters to gunners and back-benchers—in a funny, perceptive, and poignant (but never predictable) first novel. Grab a Diet Coke and a handful of M&Ms and settle in; once you start reading, you won’t want to stop.” — Amy Howe, co-founder & editor, SCOTUSblog “In Called On, Lisa McElroy deftly chronicles the stories of law professor Connie Shun and first year law student…

  • Books,  Featured,  Legal History & Biography

    Paul Pruitt’s powerful collection of young lawyers’ essays on Alabama legal history

    NEW FIELD, NEW CORN is an anthology of research papers that explore a range of topics from the rich legal history of the state of Alabama and its influential legal and judicial figures. Contemporary photography and mapwork are featured as well. “Alabama legal history can be surprising. Usually, this history is identified with dominant one-party politics, slavery, racial segregation, and limited social welfare. Paul Pruitt’s collection of young lawyers’ research reveals a new field. It extends out from legal subjects, embracing new perceptions of law in society across Alabama history. The collection rests on broad research. Lawyers working in diverse fields have produced Alabama legal history that sets a new…

  • Books,  Dissertation Series,  Featured

    Jonathan Liljeblad explores endangered species and international law, and how CITES is enforced locally

    Debates over U.S. government policy frequently follow a philosophy of devolution in authority from federal government to local government. This concept opens the possibility of greater local involvement in national policy implementation—and provides international treaties an opportunity to advance global policy by incorporating the efforts of local actors into their implementation framework. Much of international policy involves enforcement through international-to-national linkages forming an “implementation chain,” but devolution offers the potential to extend the implementation chain by providing national-to-local linkages. This 2014 book explores the nature of such linkages, taking as a case study the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) via its domestic analog, the Endangered Species…

  • Books,  Dissertation Series,  Featured

    Robert Sauté recounts history and institutions of U.S. public interest law in his book For the Poor and Disenfranchised

    Robert Sauté’s study explores over a century of public interest representations, pro bono legal work, and litigation groups such as the ACLU and NAACP’s Inc. Fund from a social science perspective of history and institutional analysis. For the Poor and Disenfranchised is a sociological account of the public interest bar in the United States. It traces how the legal profession delivered on the legal system’s promise of equal justice for all by making the legal system available to all and a vehicle for substantive justice, exploring political mobilization, entrepreneurial lawyering, and pro bono publico representation. “In this dramatic and detailed account, Robert Sauté documents the establishment and evolution of the…

  • Books,  Dissertation Series,  Featured

    New book on foreign investments in Asian power projects: handling political risk

    The Legal Protection of Foreign Investments Against Political Risk examines how political risks associated with foreign direct investment in the energy sector are managed or mitigated, and suggests new ways to deal with the possibility of such risk. It applies its analysis–using case studies and international law, and examining actual contracts–to the specific context of foreign investment in five Asian countries’ power infrastructure projects. “Legal protection of foreign investments against political risk has been a problem for a long time. Professor Papanastasiou’s book brilliantly balances the legitimate regulatory power of host states with legitimate business interests of foreign investors by presenting a neatly designed multi-layered legal framework for political risk…

  • Books,  Books Defying Categories,  Featured

    Eliezer Segal explores Jewish history and legends in his witty new collection of essays Chronicles and Commentaries

    The controversial history of sermons, the physics and philosophy of rainbows, lions in the synagogue, hares in the Greek Bible, the gold standard, God in human disguise—these are but a few of the many topics that are introduced in this lively miscellany of glimpses into exotic frontiers of Jewish literature, history, and tradition. In the present compendium of short studies, Dr. Eliezer Segal once again introduces the public to the fruits of Judaic scholarship, while employing a charming style that combines learning and wit. Chronicles and Commentaries is the latest addition to the author’s distinguished series of collections that includes: Why Didn’t I Learn That in Hebrew School? (1999), Ask…

  • Books,  Featured,  Legal Legends

    Llewellyn’s classic The Common Law Tradition is Digitally Remastered™ and available in paperback, hardback & ebooks

    Karl Llewellyn, a legal realist whose views on jurisprudence were influential and sometimes controversial, was also one of the leading teachers of fundamental legal thought. He took seriously the functions of courts, the use of precedent, and the power of rules. In this important book, he laid bare these jurisprudential tools, in support of appellate court thinking at all levels in the legal system. Legal analysis is so clearly picked apart that this work has served as a tool-kit for judicial thinking — and persuasive argument to courts — since it was first published in 1960. And his invaluable appendices show in detail how arguments and judicial expressions can be turned around…

  • Books,  Featured,  History and Heroes

    David Gold explores the earlier Tea Party Movement and its Emergence in the Midwest States

    Supporters of the 21st-century Tea Party movement claim the Boston Tea Party of 1773 as their inspiration, while scholars dismiss the connection. Neither camp pays much attention to the intervening years, and both overlook one of the great populist movements in American history. As David M. Gold demonstrates, 19th-century Americans who were fed up with reckless government spending, high taxes, and crony capitalism launched a campaign for smaller, more accountable, more transparent government. The movement culminated in state constitutional conventions in all the states of the Old Northwest, and other parts of the country as well, that rewrote the nation’s fundamental law. Citizens and scholars will continue to debate the…

  • Books,  Featured,  Fiction,  QP Blog

    Crump’s fictional lawyer Robert Herrick is Back: Suing Terrorists and their Money Machine

    The football game is tied. It’s in sudden death overtime. And that’s when three Islamic extremists trigger an explosion that kills over 100 innocent spectators. The men who did it are promptly caught and charged with capital murder, but everyone knows that there are more guilty people behind the act. There are banks, or foundations, or governments who fronted this terrorism. Terrorists need money. Families of the victims ask attorney Robert Herrick—the “Lawyer for the Little Guy”—to bring the financiers to justice. It’s a tough claim, and he declines . . . but eventually he’s persuaded to take the case. Nothing about this lawsuit is easy, from preparing the court…

  • Books,  Classics of the Social Sciences,  Featured

    Wilensky’s classic Organizational Intelligence takes on failure in intelligence and informational decision-making

    This prize-winning, foundational book — now in an ebook edition and new paperback, featuring a 2015 Foreword by Neil Smelser — focuses on the structural and ideological roots of intelligence failures (both informational and analytical) found in government, industry, and other institutions. It provides groundbreaking theory and structure to the analysis of decision-making processes and their breakdowns, as well as the interactions among experts and the organizations they inform.In this book, both “organization” and “intelligence” are taken to their larger meanings, not just focused on the military meaning of intelligence or on one set of institutions in society. Astute illustrations of intelligence failures abound from real-world cases, such as foreign…