As a white Yale Law School graduate, Meltsner began his career with the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP, working initially under Thurgood Marshall and later under Jack Greenberg. From his vantage point at LDF, Meltsner witnessed and participated in litigation support of the civil rights movement in the South. As the movement shifted north and the fight for desegregation gave way to black-power slogans, Meltsner remained involved with the LDF and later went on to teach public interest practice at Columbia Law School. He watched the move from the high expectations after the Brown v. Board of Education decision to the lows of subsequent resegregation. He recalls his involvement in other civil rights efforts, from the campaigns to abolish capital punishment to Muhammad Ali's legal battle to regain his right to box. Meltsner closes with a chapter that examines the strategic possibilities of the No Child Left Behind mandate. Meltsner brings a personal perspective to this assessment of the hopes, potential, and shifting terrain of public service law. A worthy read. --Vernon Ford Copyright 2006 Booklist.

Orientation and commencement? Making Elite Lawyers is the first detailed study of legal education at America's premier law school. Drawing on in-depth interviews, student questionnaires, and his own classroom observations, author Robert Granfield documents the conservatizing effects of the Harvard legal education on a broad cross-section of the student population, paying particular attention to the fate of women, students of color, and those from working-class.

"Emancipation is an important and impressive work; one cannot read it without being inspired by the legal acumen, creativity, and resiliency these pioneer lawyers displayed. . . . It should be read by everyone interested in understanding the road African-Americans have traveled and the challenges that lie ahead."—From the Foreword, by Justice Thurgood Marshall

The Making of a Country Lawyer is the firsthand account of a beloved American attorney, a modern-day folk hero, a man who has devoted his life's work to the downtrodden and damned. It is the story of a wayward son who, at the age of twenty, suffered an immense and tragic loss. It is this single dark moment in Spence's life that transformed him, preparing him to be a trial lawyer, eventually handling such landmark cases as the defence of Randy Weaver and the vindication of Karen Silkwood. This is the stirring memoir of a man who has captured the American imagination at a time when our belief in our values and in ourselves has been shaken to the core, told as only Gerry Spence can.

Looks at the ways in which legal thinking is corrupted by prejudice, and how the split between common law and equity, and between barristers and solicitors is reflected in the way lawyers think and talk. Considers the basic rules of thinking and communication for lawyers in the context of their professional standing and ethics.