The adversary system of trial, the defining feature of the Anglo-American criminal procedure developed late in English legal history. For centuries, defendants were forbidden to have counsel, and lawyers seldom appeared for the prosecution either. Trial was meant to be an occasion for the defendant to answer the charges in person.

The transformation from lawyer-free to lawyer-dominated criminal trial happened within the space of about a century, from the 1690s to the 1780s. This book explains how the lawyers captured the trial. In addition to conventional legal sources, Professor Langbein draws upon a rich vein of contemporary pamphlet accounts about trials in London's Old Bailey. The book also mines these novel sources to provide the first detailed account of the formation of the law of criminal evidence.

For nearly all his tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist has enjoyed the support of a slim but usually solid majority of his fellow justices. With it he has been able to effect a dramatic shift to the right in many vital areas of constitutional law. Displaying a judicial activism not seen since the 1930s, Rehnquist and his allies, in a series of 5-4 decisions, have undermined civil rights and weakened the federal government's ability to respond to pressing social needs.

As the Rehnquist court concludes its fifteenth term, the well-known constitutional authority Herman Schwartz has assembled seventeen distinguished legal scholars to evaluate its record on the many controversial issues that have come before it. Among them are Stephen Bright on capital punishment, Charles Ogletree on criminal procedure, Norman Redlich on religion, Allan Morrison and David Vladeck on regulation, and John Mackenzie on Bush v. Gore.

Some of the most massive and persistent violations of human rights occur in African nations. In Human Rights Under African Constitutions: Realizing the Promise for Ourselves, scholars from a wide range of fields present a sober, systematic assessment of the prospects for legal protection of human rights in Africa. In a series of detailed and highly contextual studies of Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, and Uganda, experts seek to balance the socioeconomic and political diversity of these nations while using the same theoretical framework of legal analysis for each case study.

Standards for human rights protection can be realized only through direct and strong support from a nation's legal and political institutions. The contributors to this volume uniformly conclude that a well-informed and motivated citizenry is the most powerful force for creating the political will necessary to effect change at the national level. In addition to a critical evaluation of the current state of human rights protection in each of these African nations, the contributors outline existing national resources available for protecting human rights and provide recommendations for more effective and practical use of these resources.

Combining theoretical rigor with solid empirical research, Human Rights Under African Constitutions makes an important contribution for scholars and students of political science, African studies, and postcolonial history, as well as providing a vital resource for NGOs and policymakers.

New Hampshire judge and probate attorney John Fairbanks, a court-appointed executor and trustee, stole thousands of dollars from the estates of his trusting elderly clients. Successful Virginia lawyer David Murray misappropriated nearly four million dollars from estates entrusted to him in one of the largest financial swindles by a lawyer in U.S. history. Enterprising attorney James Gundeson drafted wills and living trusts for many residents of Leisure World in Orange County, California, who named him the sole trustee and major beneficiary.

These are just some of the cases examined by Paula A. Monopoli to illustrate the unsettling prevalence of fraud and abuse inherent in American probate law. Probate courts are intended to provide a vehicle for the orderly disposition of property after death, to balance the interests of creditors, the government, and heirs, and to protect the rights of the elderly and others with special needs. In this insightful work, Monopoli shows how an array of flaws in the system allows corrupt and unethical lawyers to take advantage of the nation's most vulnerable citizens. She delves into such subjects as the history and purpose of probate, procedural complexities, lack of regulatory oversight, inadequate judicial resources, and the growth of non-probate alternatives, concluding with a blueprint for reform that emphasizes deterrence, detection, and compensation for the victims.  

This is the first book that directly addresses the cultural history of the legal profession. An international team of scholars canvasses wide-ranging issues concerning the culture of the legal profession and the wider cultural significance of lawyers, including consideration of the relation to cultural processes of state formation and colonisation. The essays describe and analyse significant aspects of the cultural history of the legal profession in England, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Finland. The book seeks to understand the complex ways in which lawyers were imaginatively and institutionally constructed, and their larger cultural significance. It illustrates both the diversity and the potential of a cultural approach to lawyers in history.