Ethics

Here's news that Sonia Sotomayor will write her memoirs.  That has me thinking.  ABA Standard 302 requires education in the history of the legal profession.  Just as a thought experiment, suppose you were to design a PR-credit satisfying course in which the students would read biographies of lawyers (not judges) and/or historical works about the US legal profession.  Assume that students wouldn't have to read all the books on the list, so that we can generate a pretty long list.  What would you suggest?  Here are some starters.

Robert Stevens, Law School

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

What's the best bio of John Adams, from the point of view of the legal profession?

Brian Dircks, Lincoln the Lawyer

Mark Steiner, An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln

Henry Clay Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln

William Thomas, Lawyering for the Railroad

The Cravath Firm and its Predecessors

Which book for Clarence Darrow?

Melvin Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis: A LIfe

Peter Irons, The New Deal Lawyers

Gail Jarrow, Robert H. Jackson

Mark Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law (Marshall)

Evan Thomas, The Man to See (Edward Bennett Williams)

David Langum, William Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America

Amy Leigh Campbell, Raising the Bar: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ACLU Womens Rights Project

Guy Saperstein, Civil Warrior: The Making of a Civil Rights Attorney

Patrick Dillon, Circle of Greed (Bill Lerach)