Gage to Discuss Hoover at GW Law

GW Law announces a public event on a certain alumnus, J. Edgar Hoover (LL.B. 1916; LL.M. 1917).  Professor of Practice Jonathan Cedarbaum moderates a conversation with Beverly Gage, Yale University and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography on Wednesday, February 28, 12:05-1:30, in its Burns Moot Courtroom.  Refreshments will be served.  RSVP to nsla@law.gwu.edu.

--Dan Ernst

Legal Biographies: An Online Workshop

 [We have the following announcement. DRE]

The Legal History Section of the Society of Legal Scholars and LSE’s Legal Biography Project are holding a joint online workshop on Legal Biographies on the afternoons of 9 and 10 September 2021.  You can register for this event via Eventbrite [here]. The programme is as follows:

9th September 15.00-18.00 BST: Lives in Context

15.05-15.55 BST: Morad El Kadmiri (UCL Faculty of Laws)

Wigmore and the Land of the Rising Sun: Revisiting Orientalism Through the Experience of a Late 19th Century Legal Westerniser

16.00-16.50 BST: Neil Harrison (Northumbria University)

Sir Joseph Cowen as Commissioner and Chairman of the Tyne Improvement Commission from 1850 to 1873: the Influence of his Networks on his Interpretation of the Law and his Actions

17.00-17.50 BST: Helen Rutherford (Northumbria University)

The People’s Judge: Examining the Life and Work of the Coroner for Newcastle upon Tyne 1857-1885

10th September 15.00-18.00 BST: Uses, Abuses and Methods in Legal Biographical Writing

15.05-15.55 BST: Sean Morris (University of Helsinki)

Walter George Frank Phillimore (1845 – 1929): The Early Years and Devotion to Church-Law Relations

16.00-16.50 BST: Charlotte Smith (University of Reading)

Legal Biography and Religion: Some Reflections

17.00-17.50 BST: John Tribe (University of Liverpool)

Pride & Posterity: A Reappraisal of the Earl of Birkenhead’s role in the passage of the Law of Property Act 1925

Zarnow, "Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug"

New from Harvard University Press: Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug, by Leandra Ruth Zarnow (University of Houston). A description from the Press:

Bella Abzug’s promotion of women’s and gay rights, universal childcare, green energy, and more provoked not only fierce opposition from Republicans but a split within her own party. The story of this notorious, galvanizing force in the Democrats’ “New Politics” insurgency is a biography for our times.

Before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, or Hillary Clinton, there was New York’s Bella Abzug. With a fiery rhetorical style forged in the 1960s antiwar movement, Abzug vigorously promoted gender parity, economic justice, and the need to “bring Congress back to the people.”

The 1970 congressional election season saw Abzug, in her trademark broad-brimmed hats, campaigning on the slogan “This Woman’s Place Is in the House—the House of Representatives.” Having won her seat, she advanced the feminist agenda in ways big and small, from gaining full access for congresswomen to the House swimming pool to cofounding the National Women’s Political Caucus to putting the title “Ms.” into the political lexicon. Beyond women’s rights, “Sister Bella” promoted gay rights, privacy rights, and human rights, and pushed legislation relating to urban, environmental, and foreign affairs.

Her stint in Congress lasted just six years—it ended when she decided to seek the Democrats’ 1976 New York senate nomination, a race she lost to Daniel Patrick Moynihan by less than 1 percent. Their primary contest, while gendered, was also an ideological struggle for the heart of the Democratic Party. Abzug’s protest politics had helped for a time to shift the center of politics to the left, but her progressive positions also fueled a backlash from conservatives who thought change was going too far.

This deeply researched political biography highlights how, as 1960s radicalism moved protest into electoral politics, Abzug drew fire from establishment politicians across the political spectrum—but also inspired a generation of women.

Advance praise:

“This riveting biography could not be more timely. Bella Abzug’s career provides a crucial link in the histories of radicalism, feminism, and electoral politics from the 1930s to the 1990s. Through deep research, thorough historical grounding, and a lively writing style, Zarnow has produced a compelling account of a powerful female politician who fought for peace, racial justice, and gender equality.”—Estelle B. Freedman

“Bella Abzug speaks to our times from this well-wrought biography by historian Leandra Zarnow. Abzug knew progressive change is a not a sprint but a lifetime struggle in which racial and gender equity, economic justice, and peace belong together. From the hard times of the red scare to the glory days of left liberalism in the 1960s and ’70s and right through the reaction that followed, she marshaled grassroots energy to embolden her liberal colleagues with her signature flair, modeling the kind of courage we so need now.”—Nancy MacLean

More information is available here.

-- Karen Tan

On Scholarship and Productivity – a Farewell to the Legal History Blog and a Confession

Back in June 2018, when Mitra Sharafi invited me to be a guest blogger for a month, she mentioned, among other things, that she would love a post with tips on research productivity. I did not want to end this blogging experience without complying with her wish.  

Twenty-five years after I defended my dissertation and with some twenty-or-less years before I retire, what have I learned about research and writing? 

The first thing is that, although intuitively we tend to think that focusing on smaller things and a shorter time span would enable a greater efficiency, this is usually untrue. In my own experience, the larger and wider you look, the quicker you understand what you see. This was a lesson my driving teacher taught me when I was sixteen years old. She explained that if I looked right in front of the wheels (which was what I naturally wanted to do) I would see nothing; but that if I looked to the horizon I would see everything. I am sure she did not mean to give me a life-long advice, but her wisdom guides me (also) as I imagine, plan, or execute, new projects. 

Looking to the horizon requires, among other things, to ignore the most obvious and the most travelled route. I know Robert Frost warned us that the routes we take may not make as huge a difference as we would like to believe, but not being certain where I was going paradoxically allowed me to better listen to the archives. I listened not to what they told me about the past, but also to what they said about my research question. Was it a valid question? Should it be asked differently? How can it be divided into pieces and what should be included? At least twice the archives told me to abandon the search altogether or they suggested that the project I was pursing was of little interest. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I ended up obeying. 

Knowing when to stop was a fundamental issue. Many years ago, as an MA student, my then mentor gave me the advice that when nothing surprises me any longer, it is time to leave. I follow his recommendation religiously, even as I tremble at the thought that an amazing discovery may be waiting for me in the next bunch of papers, which I will never read. 

Efficiency at the archives is one thing; another is to overcome the first blank page of a new project. There are days in which I can write, and days that are useless. I try to come to terms with these fluctuations, knowing that there is little I can do to change them. When I get really stuck I go swimming. Swimming allows me a concentration, which I cannot otherwise obtain. 

Over the years, I learned to avoid peer review. I realize this may be an unnecessary confession, but there is nothing that I like or find useful about peer review. Peer reviewers sometimes know more than you, or as much as you do, but often they do not. Some are generous and engage with your argument, but others want to impose their ideas. I know peer review is supposed to ensure a certain quality across the board and maybe sometimes it does, but in my own experience it mostly produces leveling.  While it guarantees serious and responsible scholarship, it disrupts attempts at doing things differently. Perhaps because I was educated in Paris, as I matured in the American academic system I kept asking myself whether revered French academics such as Foucault, Derrida, or Braudel, would have ever passed a proper peer review. I am convinced they would not. Nonetheless, our scholarly world is better because of what they proposed. Their insights were transformative even if their method was too new, their facts too shaky, and their tendency to generalize too extreme. 

I also believe it is important to remember that there are many ways to think about productivity. The most obvious is to measure it by the number of books and articles. Another is by evaluating the divergence between them, and the degree by which they respond to different questions, methodologies, areas, or subjects of expertise. What kinds of linguistic and archival competence is required is another important point, as well as whether sources are available online or demand dislocation, where to, and how user-friendly are the deposits. 

Beyond all these considerations, the greatest lesson I learned is that, although we tend to think about productivity as a personal achievement, in earnest, it often depends on the individuals and institutions around us. Teaching in universities with excellent students, interesting colleagues, great libraries, and comfortable office space, facilitates things tremendously. So does having many sabbaticals, preferably, many more than the term usually implies. A supportive domestic and social environment is crucial. We often give thanks to our families and friends because of what they had endured while we did research and writing. I am thankful to them on this account, but I am mostly grateful for the conversations they facilitated. I found dialogues with my twin boys surprisingly illuminating. When they were younger, I needed to explain things simply; when older, my aim was to make them more complex. But, as I dragged them across countries and continents, I learned a new art of explaining and discovered new ways to think about what I believed I already knew. 

There is a famous saying that behind every successful man there is a great woman. Fortunately, I belong to a generation that can also affirm the contrary. I am certainly privileged to be backed by a great man. It is to him, that great man who listens, shares, discusses, assists, reads, and advises, that I dedicate this last piece.

Davies on TM's Lessons in Lawyering

Thurgood Marshall (LC)

Ross E. Davies, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, has posted Five Little Lessons in Lawyering from Thurgood Marshall, which is to appear in the Oklahoma Law Review 70 (2018):  779-791:

Thurgood Marshall – the famed civil rights advocate, lawyer, and Supreme Court Justice – was renowned for his storytelling, and this Essay revolves around stories – true stories – told by and about him. It is, therefore, a salute to the man by way of storytelling, in hopes that we may learn a few little lessons – some old, some maybe new – from his life.

Legal Biography of the European Union at Max Planck

[We’ve received the following announcement of the conference Key Biographies in the Legal History of European Union, 1950-1993, to take place June 21-22, 2018 at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt.  It is the “annual conference of the research field ‘Legal History of the European Union’” at the Institute.]

The history of European Union law is still to a large extent uncharted territory. This conference is based on the assumption that biographical approaches are a valuable addition to this new field.
For a long time during the last century, biographies were regarded as stale and reductionist. In the field of legal history they tended to focus on prominent jurists and doctrines, to the exclusion of the broader legal and historical context. General historians were criticized for their cradle to grave approach, which stressed the continuities and coherence of life over fragmentation, and for their inclination to give too much importance to one actor over other historical factors. It is only recently that the disciplines of history as well as law have returned to the biographical approach.

At the intersection of law and history, the historiographical turn in international law has been particularly successful. Following the lead of Finnish scholar Martti Koskenniemi, many scholars used biographies to analyse international law and its discourses over time. This intellectual history has been exceptionally sophisticated with respect to analysing the nuances of how the doctrines of international law were created and further developed. However, this strand of research was foremost produced with the purpose of contributing to contemporary theoretical debate in international law. Perhaps for this reason, and also because it was mostly written by legal scholars, it has with few exceptions ignored archival sources and generally not used the broader historiography of international history, nor did it contribute to his historiography.   

Biographical approaches have also made a significant comeback in international history in recent years. Here, biographies have been used to transcend the national context and capture the social practice of the new international and transnational reality that emerged during the twentieth century. Biographical approaches, in particular when using private archives, have allowed historians to tap into the informal politics of international organisations and transnational networks, but also to trace the elusive links between worldviews, ideology, ideas and political practice. This approach can also be made fruitful for legal history because systematic archival research allows to explore the social practice that produces law and thus the intricate relationships between law, interests and institutional self-empowerment.

This conference invites both lawyers and historians to use their particular methodologies with regard to biographies of key figures in the history of European law. Such biographies will contribute to the development of the intellectual history of the field, focusing on the development of ideas and doctrines. At the same time they will explore the links between social practices and the broader context of law and legal thinking.

[The program and registration form are accessible here.]

Kalman Reviews Fiss's "Pillars of Justice"

Brief Lives, Laura Kalman's review essay of Owen Fiss's Pillars of Justice: Lawyers and the Liberal Tradition (Harvard University Press, 2017) in the Yale Law Journal is now available.  From the introduction:

This Review proceeds in two Parts. Part I explores Fiss’s views on his luminaries, Brown, legal liberalism, and Yale. I group the discussion into five categories–civil rights idols, sympathetic colleagues, friendly critics, legal cosmopolitans, and students (who make frequent guest appearances and star in the chapter on [Catherine] MacKinnon and in Fiss’s coda, “Toiling in Eden”).  Part II discusses the criticisms of Brown, the Warren Court, and legal liberalism that are missing in Fiss’s paean. I question Fiss’s version of the history of Yale and his ideal of legal education, and maintain that he overlooks the role of legal realism in creating the school, Brown, and legal liberalism.  I then query whether legal liberalism remains as viable for the present as Fiss contends. Finally, I query whether his subjects should and can still serve as our models.

Fiss's "heroes" are Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, John Doar, Burke Marshall, Harry Kalven, Eugene Rostow, Arthur Leff, Catharine MacKinnon, Joseph Goldstein, Robert Cover, Morton Horwitz, Carlos Nino, and Aharon Barak.

Justice Thomas Interviewed and Justice Marshall Remembered

We’ve learned of two events sponsored or co-sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society.

On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 3:30 PM, Justice Clarence Thomas will participate in a conversation with Professor Gregory E. Maggs. It will be held in the Coolidge Auditorium in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress.  While available seating has been fully subscribed ..., [t]he conversation will be live streamed [here.]

In addition, the Society will host

the National Heritage Lecture on Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at 6:00 pm.  The lecture celebrates the 50th anniversary of Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court.  Five of his former law clerks will hold a conversation about his life, career and legacy.  The participants are Justice Elena Kagan, Professor Stephen Carter, Judge Paul Engelmayer, Judge Douglas Ginsburg and Professor Randall Kennedy. Ticket prices are $100 per person and include a reception following the program.

The event will be held at the Supreme Court in the Court Chamber at 6 PM with the reception to follow. Further details can be found online.  Online registration is available [here.]

A New Biography of John Marshall

Out this month from Penguin Random House is Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times, by Joel Richard Paul:

No member of America’s Founding Generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the Supreme Court than John Marshall, and no one did more to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling United States. From the nation’s founding in 1776 and for the next forty years, Marshall was at the center of every political battle. As Chief Justice of the United States – the longest-serving in history – he established the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of the federal Constitution and courts. As the leading Federalist in Virginia, he rivaled his cousin Thomas Jefferson in influence. As a diplomat and secretary of state, he defended American sovereignty against France and Britain, counseled President John Adams, and supervised the construction of the city of Washington. D.C.

This is the astonishing true story of how a rough-cut frontiersman – born in Virginia in 1755 and with little formal education – invented himself as one of the nation’s preeminent lawyers and politicians who then reinvented the Constitution to forge a stronger nation. Without Precedent is the engrossing account of the life and times of this exceptional man, who with cunning, imagination, and grace shaped America’s future as he held together the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the country itself.

Sandford's "Reluctant Reformer"

Ann Sandford, independent, has published Reluctant Reformer: Nathan Sanford in the Era of the Early Republic, with SUNY Press:

Set in the tumultuous decades of post-revolutionary America, Reluctant Reformer brings to light the long neglected New York lawyer-politician, Nathan Sanford. As a lawyer, Sanford contributed to modern property law. In the United States Senate, he dealt with central banking, struggled against slavery, and supported popular voting for presidential electors. He was a major designer of the program to rationalize the nation’s currency. Against a backdrop of European wars and the War of 1812, he capitalized on opportunities for upward social mobility in a period of nation-building and commercial expansion. At the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1821, he fought for universal manhood suffrage.

Educated in history and government at Clinton Academy on Long Island and at Yale, and a student at the Litchfield School of Law, Sanford rose quickly to prominence as the federal attorney appointed by President Jefferson to serve all of New York State. Fueled by ambition, he navigated a career among Republican factional leaders—DeWitt Clinton, Aaron Burr, and Martin Van Buren—first in New York City, and then in the state and the nation. In 1824, he ran for vice president on the ticket with Henry Clay. Attuned to his familial ties to eastern Long Island but beyond the bounds of the rural community of his youth, Sanford faced decisions about whom to trust with a militia’s gun and a citizen’s vote. He could shift from his principles toward political compromise, as in restricting black male suffrage and in the removal of Indians from their ancestral lands.

In this book, Sanford is revealed as a wealth-seeking lawyer and officeholder who contributed to the expansion of democratic rights and responsive government in the Early Republic. In doing so, he proved to be a reluctant reformer who deserves a place in our public memory.

Some endorsements:

“With this accessible biography, historian Ann Sandford rescues the public life of an influential New York politician in the days of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. We now know why Nathan Sanford deserves a valued place in the history books of the nation.” — Alair Townsend, former deputy mayor, City of New York

“Ann Sandford’s lively and fascinating biography of her distant cousin provides significant insight into the social and political environment that established New York as the center of nineteenth-century commerce and intellectual ferment. Reluctant Reformer is an extremely good read for anyone interested in New York’s rich history.” — Hon. Helen E. Freedman, retired New York Supreme Court Justice

“New Yorkers played a major role in politics after the American Revolution. They helped to establish many of the traditions and institutions which are the foundation of today’s Republic. We know many of these New Yorkers from our history books (Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Dewitt Clinton, and Martin Van Buren). In her riveting biography Reluctant Reformer Ann Sandford reminds us that American history is not just the result of these well-known figures, but the effort of an entire generation of leaders. She tells us the unsung story of Nathan Sanford, her cousin, a lawyer/politician from Bridgehampton. She recounts his service as US Attorney, State Legislator, US Senator, and Vice Presidential candidate in the nineteenth century. We see issues such as slavery and a citizen’s right to vote through the eyes of a politician who had to confront them in America’s formative years. This book provides great insights not only into Nathan Sanford, the leader, but also politics in early America.” — New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele

Ford, Jr., "Constance Baker Motley"

From the University of Alabama Press comes a new biography of Constance Baker Motley, by Gary L. Ford, Jr. (Lehman College). Here's how the Press describes Constance Baker Motley: One Woman's Fight for Civil Rights and Equal Justice under Law:

When the name Constance Baker Motley is mentioned, more often than not, the response is “Who was she?” or “What did she do?” The answer is multifaceted, complex, and inspiring. 

Constance Baker Motley was an African American woman; the daughter of immigrants from Nevis, British West Indies; a wife; and a mother who became a pioneer and trailblazer in the legal profession. She broke down barriers, overcame gender constraints, and operated outside the boundaries placed on black women by society and the civil rights movement. In Constance Baker Motley: One Woman’s Fight for Civil Rights and Equal Justice under Law, Gary L. Ford Jr. explores the key role Motley played in the legal fight to desegregate public schools as well as colleges, universities, housing, transportation, lunch counters, museums, libraries, parks, and other public accommodations. 

The only female attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Motley was also the only woman who argued desegregation cases in court during much of the civil rights movement. From 1946 through 1964, she was a key litigator and legal strategist for landmark civil rights cases including the Montgomery Bus Boycott and represented Martin Luther King Jr. as well as other protesters arrested and jailed as a result of their participation in sit-ins, marches, and freedom rides. 

Motley was a leader who exhibited a leadership style that reflected her personality traits, skills, and strengths. She was a visionary who formed alliances and inspired local counsel to work with her to achieve the goals of the civil rights movement. As a leader and agent of change, she was committed to the cause of justice and she performed important work in the trenches in the South and behind the scene in courts that helped make the civil rights movement successful.

A few blurbs:

“Gary L. Ford Jr.’s well-researched book is more than a biography of Motley’s extraordinary life. It is an argument for recognizing the tenacious, courageous role African American women like her played in advancing the cause of civil rights and equal justice for all. To witness Judge Motley in action was to be fortified and astounded. Now, thanks to Ford, a new generation can bear witness to her immense talents.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 

“I had no idea how critical Constance Baker Motley’s role was until I read this book. Its insights about the way in which she, more than the males at the Legal Defense Fund, would get on a plane and head south time and again, into dangerous situations, defying racial and gender conventions, defying governors, legislatures, judges, and white mobs, persisting through every obfuscation, to make the Brown edict real, were a revelation!”
—Sheryll Cashin

More information is available here.

Backhouse on L'Heureux-Dubé

Out this month with UBC Press is Claire L'Heureux-Dubé: A Life by Constance Backhouse (University of Ottawa). From the publisher:

Both lionized and vilified, Claire L’Heureux-Dubé has shaped the Canadian legal landscape – and in particular its highest court. The second woman appointed to the Supreme Court, and the first Québécoise, she was known as “the great dissenter,” making judgments that were applauded and criticized in turn.

Who was this energetic, risk-taking woman? L’Heureux-Dubé stands out as one of the most dynamic and controversial judges on a controversial court. Did she consciously position herself for success in a discriminatory milieu, or was she oblivious to power?

L’Heureux-Dubé anchored her innovative legal approach to cases in their social, economic, and political context. Constance Backhouse employs a similar tactic. Rather than focusing exclusively on jurisprudential legacy, she explores the rich sociopolitical and cultural setting in which L’Heureux-Dubé’s career unfolded, while also considering her personal life.

This compelling biography covers aspects of legal history that have never been so fully investigated. Changing gender norms are traced through the experience of a francophone woman within the male-dominated Quebec legal profession – and within the primarily anglophone world of the Supreme Court. Claire L’Heureux-Dubé enhances our understanding of the Canadian judiciary, the creation of law, the Quebec socio-legal environment, and the nation’s top court.

Claire L’Heureux-Dubé will interest students and scholars of law, Canadian and Quebec history, and women’s studies, as well as legal professionals such as lawyers, judges, and law clerks. More generally, those who enjoy Canadian biography will find compelling reading in this study of a highly influential woman with a formidable legal intellect.

Praise for the book:

“A compelling book about a compelling judge by a compelling author. Claire L’Heureux Dubé is a bold, brilliant, and brave woman who transformed Canadian law. Constance Backhouse is also a bold, brilliant, and brave woman who has transformed Canadian legal history. This is a meeting between two giants, the ebullient and forceful Québec legal mind and the eminent Anglo-Canadian feminist scholar. I laughed, I cried, I debated, and I reflected. I read it in two days. So should you.”  -Nathalie Des Rosiers

“This book is a tour de force. Constance Backhouse has created a new genre, one that masterfully combines socio-legal history and riveting biography, giving insight not just into the life of an individual but also into Canadian history. In its weaving together of public and private events, this book makes visible the costs borne by those who were breaking paths ahead of their time.” -Rebecca Johnson

“Professor Backhouse has taken her legal expertise, stirred in prodigious amounts of research, added some spicy feminist analysis, iced the whole with her inimitable writing style, and served up a magnificent biography. For many English Canadians this detailed portrait will be an eye-opener, one that may well contribute to a greater understanding of Quebec history and culture through its comprehensive, intimate, and insightful portrait of Claire L’Heureux-Dubé herself. This book is a triumph.”  -Philip Girard

Further information is available here.

Davies on Curtis Wilbur, Judicial Parabolist

Ross E. Davies, George Mason University,  Antonin Scalia Law School, has posted A Generous Judicial Parabolist: Curtis D. Wilbur, which appears in the Green Bag 2d 20 (2017): 381-407:

Curtis Wilbur (LC)

We – we lawyers, at least – should know Curtis Dwight Wilbur (1867-1954) better than many of us do. He was an able, upstanding, and innovative lawyer and public servant. (He was also an imperfect human being in an imperfect world, and so he had warts. For now, though, we’re going to accentuate the positive.) He enjoyed an enviable legal career that included long service as a practitioner, a prosecutor, a state-court judge, a federal-court judge, a Cabinet secretary, and a storytelling philanthropist. This little essay touches on all of those pursuits, but it focuses on the last.

Dowling on Elbridge T. Gerry

Shelley L. Dowling, retired Librarian of the Court, US Supreme Court, has published Elbridge Thomas Gerry: An Exceptional Life in Gilded Gotham with Talbot Publishing. The book won the American Association of Law Libraries’ 2017 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award. From the press:

Elbridge T. Gerry (1837-1927) was a prominent and influential Gilded Age New York trial lawyer, philanthropist and bibliophile whose 30,000 volume library became the foundation of the United States Supreme Court Library. Grandson of Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, who signed the Declaration of Independence, Dowling's extensively illustrated biography of Gerry highlights the influence of his family and its links to other prominent New York families, the Gallatins, Goelets and Livingstons. This biography of Gerry is also the story of Gilded Age New York, when the glamorous society balls that provided entertainment to wealthy New York families such as the Astors and Vanderbilts belied their philanthropic contributions in the Progressive era. Gerry built the first steam yacht, the Electra, which became the flagship of the New York Yacht Club while he also sat on hospital boards and founded the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children which still operates today. As Dowling shows, Gerry's brilliance and passion was at the heart of it all.

Further information about the book is available here.

Robinette and Graham on Prosser as Dean (and Fallible Human)

Christopher J. Robinette, Widener University Commonwealth Law School, and Kyle Graham, have posted The Prosser Letters: Scholar as Dean, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Tort Law:

Examining a previously unexplored trove of letters, this article sheds new light on the thinking and work of William L. Prosser, the past century’s leading torts scholar. In these letters to family written while dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Prosser candidly describes his approach to scholarship; the development of his casebook, the second edition of Prosser on Torts, and some of his most well-known and influential articles. Moreover, Prosser provides his often-cynical impressions of the legal process; his views of his peers at Berkeley and at other institutions; and his work as dean. The letters also demonstrate some of Prosser’s limitations, including his craving for attention, a sometimes petty personality, and racial and ethnic biases. In all, the letters capture a scholar at the zenith of professional accomplishment in his field, who nevertheless showed signs of the insecurity that would later trigger his resignation from the Berkeley deanship and retreat from the forefront of torts scholarship.

Ernst on TR on the Structure of Government

Julia L. Ernst, North Dakota School of Law, has published The Legacy of Theodore Roosevelt’s Approach to Governmental Powers, North Dakota Law Review 92 (2016): 309-363:

TR 1899 (NYPL)

This Article explores how Theodore Roosevelt viewed the structure of government within the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  It particularly considers his standpoints on the interrelationships between the three branches of government–executive, legislative, and judicial–at both the federal and state levels.  More specifically, it investigates Roosevelt’s perspectives on presidential use of executive orders to take action in the face of Congressional inertia in the federal government.  Considering state governments, it examines his views in favor of restricting the independence of the judiciary.  The Article suggests that, while Theodore Roosevelt’ s approach to the judiciary has not been followed, he helped set the stage for the active use of executive orders in shaping the federal laws, which has substantially  influenced  the  relationship  between  the  president  and Congress.  Whether or not one agrees with presidential use of executive orders to effectuate major legal and policy changes, Roosevelt’s legacy in originating the extensive use of this practice remains significant today.

O'Brien on Landis

Out with Hart Publishing is The Triumph, Tragedy and Lost Legacy of James M. Landis by Justin O’Brien, University of New South Wales. From the publisher:

James M Landis – scholar, administrator, advocate and political adviser – is known for his seminal contribution to the creation of the modern system of market regulation in the USA. As a highly influential participant in the politics of the New Deal he drafted the statute which was to become the foundation for securities regulation in the US, and by extension the founding principle of financial market regulation across the world. He was also a complex and in some ways tragic figure, whose glittering career collapsed following the revelation that he had failed to pay tax for a five year period in the 1950s. The oversight was to cost possible elevation to the Supreme Court, forced prosecution and sentencing in 1963 to one month's imprisonment, commuted to forced hospitalisation, and subsequent suspension of licence to practise. This candid and revealing book sets his life in the context of his work as an academic, legislative draftsman, administrator and Dean of Harvard Law School. In rescuing from history Landis's battles and achievements in regulatory design, theory and practice, it speaks directly to the perennial problems in financial market regulation - how to deal with institutions deemed too big to fail, how to regulate the sale of complex financial instruments and what role can the professions play as gatekeepers of market integrity. It argues that in failing to learn from the lessons of history we limit the capacity of regulatory intervention to facilitate cultural change, without which contemporary responses to financial crises are destined to fail.

Here’s the TOC:

1 The Draftsman: The Normative Underpinnings of the Disclosure Paradigm 
2 The Administrator: Codes of Conduct and the Dynamics of Regulatory Politics 
3 The Activist: Institutionalizing the New Deal 
4 The Firefighter: The Existential Choice 
5 The Transformational Dean: Law, Lawyers and Society 
6 The Advisor: Revitalizing and Losing Regulatory Authority 
7 The Fall: Hubris and the Making of a Greek Tragedy 
Conclusion – The Lost Legacy: James M Landis and the
Future of Regulatory Capitalism

More information is available here.

Hancock on Australian barrister Tom Hughes

Historian and biographer Ian Hancock published Tom Hughes QC: A Cab on the Rank with The Federation Press in 2016. From the publisher:

For more than thirty years, Tom Hughes, a scion of a notable Sydney family of high achievers, was one of Australia’s top barristers, renowned, respected and sometimes feared for his dominating presence in the courtroom. Equally at home in all jurisdictions, his theatrical style, command of language and forensic skills filled public galleries, exposed witnesses, persuaded juries and ensured that judges paid attention. An icon of the Sydney and Australian Bar, he appeared in a raft of celebrated cases, became the subject of many media profiles and was, from the 1970s to the 1990s, the country’s most expensive advocate. 

Hughes has also been a wartime pilot, a politician, an activist federal Attorney-General, a grazier, and a racehorse owner. He survived a broken marriage, a spiteful sacking from ministerial office and a prolonged though not permanent loss of an inherited Catholic faith. He endured years of frustration before finding the right partner to replicate the perfect marriage of his beloved parents. Even in dark times, however, a thorough professional and a prodigious worker, Hughes remained focused on his first love, the law, always upholding its traditions and processes. 

In addition to published material, the book draws on a huge trove of personal records, including fee books, intimate diaries, autobiographical jottings and private correspondence, supplemented by interviews with Hughes, his family, friends and colleagues. Using these sources, the book provides insights into a many-sided character - telling the story of how Hughes and his immediate forebears embraced more of their English than their Irish heritage while becoming distinctively Australian. It also offers a personal perspective on several decades of Australian political, social and legal history.

Praise for the book:

"The subtitle of this compellingly readable biography of Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes AO QC borrows the underlying philosophical metaphor of the independent Bar. A barrister is available for hire by those who will pay the fee, irrespective of personal, political, social, or other co- incidence with the client, or approval or disapproval of his or her cause. Hughes’s advocacy style has been described as declamatory and theatrical, a characteristic pose was, with ‘menacing pirouette’, to address the side, or even the rear of the courtroom. Occasionally there would be penetrating wit, as when he said of a trade union hearing which had expelled his client that to describe it as a kangaroo court ‘would be an understatement and an insult to a great Australian marsupial.'” –Peter Heerey

“Crime, defamation, constitutional issues, commercial litigation, inquiries - for 60 years Tom Hughes was there, a big man with a big capacity for the big cases. … He has attained almost legendary status as being perhaps the last of his kind. The case for reading his biography is substantial on these grounds alone, and reinforced because Hughes' story comprises many other fascinating narratives.” –Kate Allman

“Most Sydney lawyers have a repertoire of Tom Hughes stories. He became a legend in his lifetime, and was still practising as a barrister well into his 80s. His trademark was a rare ability to persuade and intimidate: judges, juries, witnesses, legal opponents, clients, colleagues, all. Instructing solicitors were fair game, yet it was always an honour to work with Hughes. For more than 50 years he was a commanding presence in Australian and English courts. And as Ian Hancock demonstrates in this excellent biography, he has lived a life of multifaceted eminence.” –Roy Williams

Further information about the book, including interviews and other media coverage, is available here.

Cuéllar on Landis on Administrative Government

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Stanford Law School, has posted James Landis and the Dilemmas of Administrative Government, which appeared in the George Washington Law Review 83 (2015): 101-127:

In the late 1930s, the American administrative state was becoming an increasingly important component of American national government as the country recovered from the Depression and emerged as a preeminent geopolitical power. Amidst these changes, James Landis had a distinctive perspective borne from his experience as a public official, institutional architect, scholar, and Harvard Law School Dean. Often provocative, Landis blindsided his former Roosevelt administration colleagues with his espousal of independent agencies. Later, as a consultant to President-elect John F. Kennedy, Landis wrote the report that served as a major impetus for the creation of the Administrative Conference of the United States (“ACUS”).

This Article explains how the themes in Landis’s work and career foreshadowed persistent dilemmas in the modern administrative state — dilemmas that often tend to define as well as constrain the agenda of ACUS. Landis once sought to bolster the legitimacy of the administrative state by celebrating technocratic forms of decisionmaking that could take root in heavily-insulated independent agencies. Though he later embraced a more expansive conception of presidential power, Landis did not fully recognize the tensions that arise between technocratic forms of decisionmaking — whether assisted by agency scientists or modern, adaptive computer algorithms — and the political pressures that simultaneously help make democracy messy while enhancing its legitimacy. Nor did Landis fully explore the implications arising from growing awareness of a convergence, and the blurring divide, between foreign affairs and administrative government — even if some of his own work ironically anticipated this situation. Landis’s reformist ambition found a worthy expression in the idea that coalesced into ACUS. But the conference continues to face some indelible trade-offs that define the modern administrative state even more today than during the midtwentieth century.