In 1776, Thomas Paine declared the end of royal rule in the United States. Instead, “law is king,” for the people rule themselves. Paine’s declaration is the dominant American understanding of how political power is exercised. In making law king, American lawyers became integral to the exercise of political power, so integral to law that legal ethics philosopher David Luban concluded, “lawyers are the law.” American lawyers have defended the exercise of this power from the Revolution to the present by arguing their work is channeled by the profession’s standards of ethical behavior. Those standards demand that lawyers serve the public interest and the interests of their paying clients before themselves. The duties owed both to the public and to clients meant lawyers were in the marketplace selling their services, but not of the marketplace. This is the story of power and the limits of ethical constraints to ensure such power is properly wielded. The Lawyer’s Conscience is the first book examining the history of American lawyer ethics, ranging from the mid-eighteenth century to the “professionalism” crisis facing lawyers today.

Marke, Julius J., Editor. A Catalogue of the Law Collection at New York University With Selected Annotations. New York: The Law Center of New York University, 1953. xxxi, 1372 pp. Reprinted 1999 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-19939. ISBN 1-886363-91-9. Cloth. $195. * Reprint of the massive, well-annotated catalogue compiled by the librarian of the School of Law at New York University. Classifies approximately 15,000 works excluding foreign law, by Sources of the Law, History of Law and its Institutions, Public and Private Law, Comparative Law, Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, Political and Economic Theory, Trials, Biography, Law and Literature, Periodicals and Serials and Reference Material. With a thorough subject and author index. This reference volume will be of continuous value to the legal scholar and bibliographer, due not only to the works included but to the authoritative annotations, often citing more than one source. Besterman, A World Bibliography of Bibliographies 3461.

Covers English language periodical literature relating to law from the late 1700s through 1937. Volumes 1 & 2 contain citations to articles published in general interest as well as legal periodicals.