Featured Acquisitions

Featured Acquisitions - June 2007

See also: Recent Acquisitions in Selected Subject Areas


		The Failure of Corporate Law: Fundamental Flaws and Progressive Possibilities by Kent Greenfield Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2006 KF1416 .G74 2006 Balcony When used in conjunction with corporations, the term "public" is misleading. Anyone can purchase shares of stock, but public corporations themselves are uninhibited by a sense of societal obligation or strict public oversight. In fact, managers of most large firms are prohibited by law from taking into account the interests of the public in decision making, if doing so hurts shareholders. But this has not always been the case, as until the beginning of the twentieth century, public corporations were deemed to have important civic responsibilities. With The Failure of Corporate Law, Kent Greenfield hopes to return corporate law to a system in which the public has a greater say in how firms are governed. Greenfield maintains that the laws controlling firms should be much more protective of the public interest and of the corporation's various stakeholders, such as employees. Only when the law of corporations is evaluated as a branch of public law--as with constitutional law or environmental law--will it be clear what types of changes can be made in corporate governance to improve the common good. Greenfield proposes changes in corporate governance that would enable corporations to meet the progressive goal of creating wealth for society as a whole rather than merely for shareholders and executives.
		The Next 25 Years: The New Supreme Court and What It Means for Americans by Martin Garbus New York : Seven Stories Press, c2007 KF8742 .G375 2007 Balcony In The Next 25 Years, renowned First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus examines what will be the impact of the new Supreme Court on the future of our republic. Drawing on extensive knowledge of Constitutional law and legal precedents, Garbus, one of our most astute legal historians, defrocks the executive branch's grip over the judiciary as an extension of its own executive powers. He warns of the threat of an incoming "textualist" bench that wishes to roll back more than a century's worth of hard-won reforms. And he offers the first clear-eyed account of how the coming bench may imperil our way of life and endanger the liberties you may have thought were our inalienable rights.
		The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law edited by Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnee and Ellen Hey Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007 K3585 .O96 2007 Balcony The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law takes stock of the major developments in international environmental law, while exploring the field's core assumptions and concepts, basic analytical tools, and key challenges. Featuring contributions from distinguished scholars and drawing upon insights from political science, economics and philosophy, it is intended to serve as an indispensable overview of the field.
		Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law by Alan D. Morrison and William J. Wilhelm, Jr. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007 HG4534 .M65 2007 Basement Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law provides an economic rationale for the dominant role of investment banks in the capital markets, and uses it to explain both the historical evolution of the investment banking industry and also recent changes to its organization. Although investment decisions rely upon price-relevant information, it is impossible to establish property rights over it and hence it is very hard to coordinate its exchange. The authors argue that investment banks help to resolve this problem by managing "information marketplaces," within which extra-legal institutions support the production and dissemination of information that is important to investors. Reputations and relationships are more important in fulfilling this role than financial capital. The authors substantiate their theory with reference to the industry's evolution during the last three centuries. They show how investment banking networks were formed, and identify the informal contracts that they supported. This historical development points to tensions between the relational contracting of investment banks and the regulatory impulses of the State, thus providing some explanation for the periodic large-scale State intervention in the operation of capital markets. Their theory also provides a technological explanation for the massive restructuring of the capital markets in recent decades, which the authors argue can be used to think about the likely future direction of the investment banking industry.
		The Killing State: Capital Punishment in Law, Politics, and Culture edited by Austin Sarat New York : Oxford University Press, 1999 KF9227.C2 K56 1999 Balcony This volume offers a timely examination of a vitally important topic: the impact of capital punishment on our law, our politics, and our cultural life. Asking what it means for citizens to live in a killing state, the book shows why America clings tenaciously to a punishment that has been abandoned by every other industrialized democracy.
		Born Unfree: Child Labour, Education, and the State in India by Myron Weiner, Neera Burra, Asha Bajpai New Delhi ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006 HD6250.I42 B67 2006 Basement This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date look at child labor, the exploitative relationship of the economy to the children of the poor and the marginalized in India, and on child rights as a key issues in the development debate internationally.
		David's Hammer: The Case for An Activist Judiciary by Clint Bolick Washington, D.C. : Cato Institute, c2007 KF384 .B58 2007 Balcony Judicial activism is condemned by both right and left, for good reason: lawless courts are a threat to republican government. But challenging conventional wisdom, constitutional litigator Clint Bolick argues in David's Hammer that far worse is a judiciary that allows the other branches of government to run roughshod over precious liberties. For better or for worse, only a vigorous judiciary can enforce the limits on executive and legislative action, protect constitutional rights, and tame unelected bureaucrats. That, Bolick demonstrates, is exactly the role the framers intended the courts to play, envisioning a judiciary deferential to proper democratic governance but bold in defense of freedom. But the historical record is painfully uneven. During the Warren era, courts protected freedom of speech and equal protection of the law but denigrated other important rights and took on executive and legislative powers that brought disrepute to the judiciary. The Rehnquist Court restored some balance, reining in judicial excesses and protecting property rights, but stopped far short of the activist judicial role the framers charted for the courts in policing conduct of other branches of government that exceeds constitutional boundaries. Bolick showcases numerous real-world examples of people whose rights to free speech, economic liberty, equal protection of the law, and private property were violated by government--victims of government oppression whose only recourse is the courts. David's Hammer reclaims for the judiciary its intended role as the ultimate safeguard of a free society.
		Answering the Call of the Court: How Justices and Litigants Set the Supreme Court Agenda: by Vanessa A. Baird Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2007 KF8742 .B295 2007 Balcony The U.S. Supreme Court is the quintessential example of a court that expanded its agenda into policy areas that were once reserved for legislatures. Yet scholars know very little about what causes attention to various policy areas to ebb and flow on the Supreme Court's agenda. Vanessa A. Baird's Answering the Call of the Court: How Justices and Litigants Set the Supreme Court Agenda represents the first scholarly attempt to connect justices' priorities, litigants' strategies, and aggregate policy outputs of the U.S. Supreme Court. Most previous studies on the Supreme Court's agenda examine case selection, but Baird demonstrates that the agenda-setting process begins long before justices choose which cases they will hear. When justices signal their interest in a particular policy area, litigants respond by sponsoring well-crafted cases in those policy areas. Approximately four to five years later, the Supreme Court's agenda in those areas expands, with cases that are comparatively more politically important and divisive than other cases the Court hears. From issues of discrimination and free expression to welfare policy, from immigration to economic regulation, strategic supporters of litigation pay attention to the goals of Supreme Court justices and bring cases they can use to achieve those goals. Since policy making in courts is iterative, multiple well-crafted cases are needed for courts to make comprehensive policy. Baird argues that judicial policy-making power depends on the actions of policy entrepreneurs or other litigants who systematically respond to the priorities and preferences of Supreme Court justices.
		Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History by Daniel Kanstroom Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2007 KF4842 .K25 2007 Balcony The danger of deportation hangs over the head of virtually every noncitizen in the United States. In the complexities and inconsistencies of immigration law, one can find a reason to deport almost any noncitizen at almost any time. In recent years, the system has been used with unprecedented vigor against millions of deportees. We are a nation of immigrants--but which ones do we want, and what do we do with those that we don't? These questions have troubled American law and politics since colonial times. Deportation Nation is a chilling history of communal self-idealization and self-protection. The post-Revolutionary Alien and Sedition Laws, the Fugitive Slave laws, the Indian "removals," the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Palmer Raids, the internment of the Japanese Americans--all sought to remove those whose origins suggested they could never become "true" Americans. And for more than a century, millions of Mexicans have conveniently served as cheap labor, crossing a border that was not official until the early twentieth century and being sent back across it when they became a burden. By illuminating the shadowy corners of American history, Daniel Kanstroom shows that deportation has long been a legal tool to control immigrants' lives and is used with increasing crudeness in a globalized but xenophobic world.
		Scoundrels to the Hoosegow: Perry Mason Moments and Entertaining Cases from the Files of a Prosecuring Attorney... by Morley Swingle Columbia : University of Missouri Press, c2007 KF373.S95 A3 2007 Balcony It has been said that the public prosecutor has more power over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person--a daunting proposition, but perhaps less intimidating when that official's perspective is tempered by humor and compassion. In Scoundrels to the Hoosegow, a veteran prosecutor who is also a consummate storyteller shares more than thirty entertaining legal stories drawn from real life, re-creating, with verve and wit, villains, heroes, and ordinary citizens. In cases both tragic and hilarious, Morley Swingle offers a behind-the-scenes look at the justice system, taking readers from the scene of the crime to the courtroom as he explores the worlds of judges, attorneys, police officers, and criminals. Informed by a deep appreciation of Mark Twain, Swingle aims to do for his profession what Clemens did for riverboat piloting. He leads readers on an enjoyable romp through crime and punishment, while offering a clear exposition of legal points--from the subtleties of cross-examination to the role of plea bargaining. In cases ranging from indecent exposure to conspiracy to commit murder, Swingle considers the fine line between pornography and obscenity and discusses sensitive issues surrounding first-degree murder and the death penalty. Whether describing a drunken but well-meaning probationer who frees the dogs on "death row: or the woman who tries to hire a reluctant hit man to dispose of her husband, he combines true crime and legal analysis with a healthy dose of humor--and shares the occasional "Perry Mason moment" in which a trial dramatically shifts direction. Not since the author of Anatomy of a Murder, Robert Traver, wrote Small Town D.A. fifty years ago has an American prosecutor penned such a candid, revealing, and funny account of the job--an altogether satisfying book that sentences the reader to many hours of enjoyment.
		Strategic Selection: Presidential Nomination of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush by Christine L. Nemacheck Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2007 KF8742 .N46 2007 Balcony The process by which presidents decide whom to nominate to fill Supreme Court vacancies is obviously of far-ranging importance, particularly because the vast majority of nominees are eventually confirmed. But why is one individual selected from among a pool of presumably qualified candidates? In Strategic Selection: Presidential Nomination of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush, Christine Nemacheck makes heavy use of presidential papers to reconstruct the politics of nominee selection from Herbert Hoover's appointment of Charles Evan Hughes in 1930 through President George W. Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito in 2005. Bringing to light firsthand evidence of selection politics and of the influence of political actors, such as members of Congress and presidential advisors, from the initial stages of formulating a short list through the president's final selection of a nominee, Nemacheck constructs a theoretical framework that allows her to assess the factors impacting a president's selection process. Much work on Supreme Court nominations focuses on struggles over confirmation, or is heavily based on anecdotal material and posits the 'idiosyncratic' nature of the selection process; in contrast, Strategic Selection points to systematic patterns in judicial selection. Nemacheck argues that although presidents try to maximize their ideological preferences and minimize uncertainty about nominees' conduct once they are confirmed, institutional factors that change over time, such as divided government and the institutionalism of the presidency, shape and constrain their choices. By revealing the pattern of strategic action, which she argues is visible from the earliest stages of the selection process, Nemacheck takes us a long way toward understanding this critically important part of our political system.
		Managing the Modern Law Firm: New Challenges, New Perspectives edited by Laura Empson Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2007 K129 .M36 2007 Balcony Law firms face unique organizational, managerial, and business issues, such as the role of partners, new practice development, payment systems, the value of legal knowledge, career development, and competitive advantage. Successfully meeting these challenges is vital for the prosperity of law firms. Featuring contributions from both legal practitioners and management researchers, Managing the Modern Law Firm seeks to present the latest insights from Management Studies in an approachable, practical, and relevant manner for lawyers involved directly and indirectly with the management of law firms.
		Running for Judge: The Rising Political, Financial, and Legal Stakes of Judicial Elections edited by Matthew J. Streb New York : New York University Press, c2007 KF8785.A7 R86 2007 Balcony Across the country, races for judgeships are becoming more and more politically contested. As a result, several states and cities are now considering judicial election reform. Running for Judge examines the increasingly contentious judicial elections over the last twenty-five years by providing a timely, insightful analysis of judicial elections. The book ties together the current state of the judicial elections literature, and presents new evidence on a wide range of important topics, including: the history of judicial elections; an understanding of the types of judicial elections; electoral competition during races; the increasing importance of campaign financing; voting in judicial elections; the role interest groups play in supporting candidates; party organizing in supposedly non-partisan elections; judicial accountability; media coverage; and judicial reform of elections.
		Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas by Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher New York : Doubleday, c2007 KF8745.T48 M47 2007 Balcony Supreme Discomfort originated from a much-commented-upon profile of Clarence Thomas that appeared in an August 2002 issue of The Washington Post Magazine. In it, Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, both Post staffers, both black, crafted a haunting portrait of an isolated and bitter man, savagely reviled by much of the black community, not entirely comfortable in white society, internally wounded by his passage from a broken family and rural poverty in Georgia to elite educational institutions to the pinnacle of judicial power. He has clearly never recovered from the searing experience of his Senate confirmation hearings and the "he said/she said" drama of the accusations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill. Supreme Discomfort tracks the personal odyssey of perhaps the least understood man in Washington, from his poor childhood in Pin Point and Savannah, Georgia, to his educational experiences in a Catholic seminary and Holy Cross, to his law school years at Yale during the black power era, to his rise within the Republican political establishment. It offers a window into a man who straddles two different worlds and is uneasy in both--and whose divided personality and conservative political philosophy will deeply influence American life for years to come.