"A magnificent book on writing. Drawing on the lessons from psycholinguistics and rhetoric, Judge Bacharach has written a remarkably practical book on how to write effectively. Judge Bacharach illustrates his points with very specific suggestions and countless examples from briefs from top lawyers and opinions of judges. I learned so much from this wonderful book." -- Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, Berkeley School of Law

All institutions concerned with the process of judging - whether it be deciding between alternative courses of action, determining a judge’s professional integrity, assigning culpability for an alleged crime, or ruling on the credibility of an asylum claimant - are necessarily directly concerned with the question of doubt. By putting ritual and judicial settings into comparative perspective, in contexts as diverse as Indian and Taiwanese divination and international cricket, as well as legal processes in France, the UK, India, Denmark, and Ghana, this book offers a comprehensive and novel perspective on techniques for casting and dispelling doubt, and the roles they play in achieving verdicts or decisions that appear both valid and just. Broadening the theoretical understandings of the social role of doubt, both in social science and in law, the authors present these understandings in ways that not only contribute to academic knowledge but are also useful to professionals and other participants engaged in the process of judging. This collection will consequently be of great interest to academics researching in the fields of legal anthropology, ritual studies, legal sociology, criminology, and socio-legal studies.

Good Judgment, based upon the author's experience as a lawyer, law professor, and judge, explores the role of the judge and the art of judging. Engaging with the American, English, and Commonwealth literature on the role of the judge in the common law tradition, Good Judgment addresses the following questions: What exactly do judges do? What is properly within their role and what falls outside? How do judges approach their decision-making task? In an attempt to explain and reconcile two fundamental features of judging, namely judicial choice and judicial discipline, this book explores the nature and extent of judicial choice in the common law legal tradition and the structural features of that tradition that control and constrain that element of choice. As Sharpe explains, the law does not always provide clear answers, and judges are often left with difficult choices to make, but the power of judicial choice is disciplined and constrained and judges are not free to decide cases according to their own personal sense of justice. Although Good Judgment is accessibly written to appeal to the non-specialist reader with an interest in the judicial process, it also tackles fundamental issues about the nature of law and the role of the judge and will be of particular interest to lawyers, judges, law students, and legal academics.

John Mikhail explores whether moral psychology is usefully modelled on aspects of Universal Grammar.

This pioneering study on environmental case-law examines how courts engage with science and reviews legitimate styles of judicial reasoning.