Lat’s Legal Library (05.2024): Witch Hunts
Canceling lawyers, taking down textualism, defeating Donald Trump, and more.
Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks!
Happy Friday! And welcome to the latest edition of Lat’s Legal Library (LLL), in which I highlight noteworthy new books about or related to the law.
By “new,” I mean “new since the last installment of LLL”—which came out last October, so some of these books aren’t exactly hot off the presses. But I thought this roundup might still be helpful to some of you, for two reasons.
First, some of you are looking for graduation gifts, whether for college graduates bound for law school or law-school graduates entering the workforce (and no, a canceled commencement doesn’t get you out of your gift-buying obligation). Second, Memorial Day and summer are just around the corner, so we all need books to take with us on vacation.
Here’s my list of featured titles. As usual for LLL, I selected these books based on media coverage, reader recommendations, and pitches by publicists and authors, as opposed to my personally having read all of them myself (unfortunately not possible, given my writing, podcasting, and parental duties).
Canceling Lawyers: Case Studies of Accountability, Toleration, and Regret, by W. Bradley Wendel. Under what circumstances should lawyers be “canceled” for representing unpopular clients or causes? Many lawyers would answer “never”—but as Professor Brad Wendel argues in Canceling Lawyers, the reality is far more complicated. According to Professor Robert W. Gordon, Wendel’s argument is “forceful” and “made with exceptional clarity and style,” and even folks who disagree with him “will find their minds sharpened by this book.”
Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect, by John Inazu. Speaking of disagreeing, how can we do it better? As we get deeper into a highly contentious election season, the ability to disagree without being disagreeable is more crucial than ever. According to President Philip Ryken of Wheaton College, Learning to Disagree is a “wonderful, deeply personal, highly entertaining book,” which “takes readers inside the brilliant mind and loving heart of an outstanding legal scholar who wants us to grow genuine friendships, even when we have principled disagreements.”
Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, by Stephen Breyer. Who is a better role model for navigating differences respectfully than Justice Breyer? In his latest book, he sets forth his disagreements with textualism and originalism—and according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, “You will not read a more important legal work this election year.”
Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation, by Jack M. Balkin. The role of history in constitutional interpretation is a hot topic right now, especially in originalist circles. “Lawyers and historians have long mistrusted each other,” as legal historian Laura Kalman points out—but “[i]n this remarkable book, one of our most brilliant constitutional theorists blazes a path towards a more satisfying coexistence by reframing the many ways history is deployed in the creation of constitutional claims. Bravo!”
Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System, by Ryan J. Reilly. The January 6 attack on the Capitol was one of the biggest historical events of the past few years—and in Sedition Hunters, Reilly explores its implications for the American justice system. According to Chris Hayes of MSNBC, this book is “[t]he definitive account of the massive, open-source effort to bring January 6 perpetrators to justice, from the finest reporter on the beat.”
Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabatoging America, by Barbara McQuade. Disinformation played a major role in fueling the events of January 6—and according to Preet Bharara, McQuade—a former U.S. attorney and current NBC/MSNBC legal analyst—offers in this New York Times bestseller “a comprehensive and necessary account of the ways in which disinformation undermines American democracy.”
The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary, by Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann. Like Attack from Within, The Trump Indictments is a Times bestseller written by MSNBC contributors—specifically, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann and Professor Melissa Murray of NYU Law (and Strict Scrutiny fame).
Taking Down Trump: 12 Rules for Prosecuting Donald Trump by Someone Who Did It Successfully, by Tristan Snell. The government is about to rest in Donald Trump’s hush-money case. But with three prosecutions of Trump still pending, the insights of former New York State assistant attorney general Snell, who successfully handled the Trump University civil-fraud case, remain relevant.
The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice, by Alex Hortis. The ex-president constantly complaints of “witch hunts” against him—but he’s got nothing on Polly Bodine, the defendant in an infamous 1843 murder case whom the tabloids caricatured as a witch. In a Washington Post review, Ilana Masad states that this “compulsively readable book… emphasize[s] the deep misogynist roots of witch trials, real and metaphorical.”
Get Off My Neck: Black Lives, White Justice, and a Former Prosecutor’s Quest for Reform, by Debbie Hines. In the annals of American legal history, misogyny can be found alongside deep racial inequities—the focus of Get Off My Neck, which Kirkus Reviews calls a “forceful plea to reform the toxic entanglement of prosecution, policing, and probation in the criminal justice system.”
Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession, by Ray Brescia. Kirkus lauds Brescia’s book as a “powerful examination of the U.S. legal field,” in which the author “makes a convincing case that the legal profession must take massive strides toward reform now.” According to Professor Jennifer Taub, “This timely and engaging book is a must-read for practitioners and academics who are training the next generation of attorneys.”
The Court v. The Voters: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights, by Joshua A. Douglas. Speaking of systems in need of reform, Professor Douglas argues that the Supreme Court’s voting-rights jurisprudence cries out for transformation. Per Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, “Saving our democracy requires taking the lessons of this book, and its recommendations, very seriously.”
Who Owns This Sentence?: A History of Copyrights and Wrongs, by David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu. The books discussed so far have kinda been… downers. For more cheerful fare, check out this work, in which Bellos (a literature professor) and Montagu (an IP lawyer) teamed up to produce what Alexandra Jacobs of the Times declares a “surprisingly sprightly history” of copyright.
Elegant Legal Writing, by Ryan McCarl. Legal-writing guru and BriefCatch CEO Ross Guberman praises McCarl’s book as “a terrific addition to the field. Bristling with sage advice and generous examples, this book will help you navigate nearly every legal-writing hurdle in your path.”
Resurrection Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel, by Michael Connelly. If you’re looking for something that’s more of a “beach read,” consider Connelly’s latest, which Tom Nolan of the Wall Street Journal calls an “immensely satisfying book.” Per Becky Meloan of the Washington Post, Resurrection Walk “hits all the right notes for fans of the well-developed characters and intelligent plotlines in the Bosch universe” (referring to LAPD Detective Larry Bosch, the protagonist of many Connelly novels).
The #1 Lawyer: A Thriller, by James Patterson and Nancy Allen. No summer reading list would be complete without an offering from James Patterson. According to Red Carpet Crash, the “[c]ourtroom scenes are top-notch,” and “Patterson and Allen have once again hit a home run.” [UPDATE (2:38 p.m.): The last two bullets were edited to move Meloan’s testimonial to Resurrection Walk—it was originally listed as pertaining to The #1 Lawyer—and to add the testimonial for The #1 Lawyer.]
And there you have them: the 16 titles that made the cut for this edition of Lat’s Legal Library. Please consider supporting these hardworking authors by buying and reading some of their books.
There are actually several books coming out later this month and over the summer, so I might have another installment of LLL for you before Labor Day. As always, I welcome nominations, but please note the timeframe: the book should ideally have been published after this roundup but before the next one. I maintain this temporal limitation because the number of law-related books I could possibly recommend would be overwhelming otherwise. If there’s a law-related book outside this timeframe that you’d like to recommend, please drop it in the comments. Thanks, and happy reading!
Disclosures: First, I received review copies of some of these books. Second, if you click on the title of any book, it will take you to a Google Doc containing affiliate links, which you can click on to purchase your desired book from Amazon—thereby generating a small commission for me, good for the cost of maybe a single disposable diaper for my ten-month-old baby. (As for why I do it this way, the terms of the Amazon Associates program don’t allow me to send out affiliate links in emails, including Substack newsletters—so I apologize for the extra step of having you go into a Google Doc.)
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When academia or anyone else with a boiling political agenda (such as, among others, coddling anti-Semitic intimidation by portraying it as just good old-fashioned dissent) starts lecturing you about "disinformation" (and, immediately thereafter, their "right" to censor it), what they actually mean by that term is "advocacy that has the temerity to disagree with my advocacy." Time to watch your wallet, not to mention your freedom.
Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of lying out there. I know. I was an AUSA for years, and as a general matter, the lying starts in earnest when the defense case begins. But in the more typical setting, "disinformation" is simply a trendy buzzword used to portray the speaker as Very Wise And Above the Fray and his opponent as a wahoo.
Maybe when this comes out in paperback it will be eligible, but Diana Henriques' "Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR's Fight to Regulate American Capitalism," published last fall, is a fantastic read on the founding of the SEC and the importance of regulation. Ms. Henriques is an excellent story-teller who brings to life what could be a dry topic, bringing law, politics and intrigue into the picture in a gripping manner. One of the best books I've read in the last year across all categories.