Recent HLS hire Cass Sunstein is blogging today at the Volokh Conspiracy about the “libertarian paternalism.” Lots of comments - join the conversation. 

Oxford University Press has just published the eight-volume African American National Biography, which was edited by Harvard professors Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks-Higginbotham.

4/15/08 update: My colleague Michelle informs me that the entries from this set are gradually being added to the online African American Studies Center database (which Harvard subscribes to), where they will be regularly updated. For similar information, see also our online subscription to the African American Biographical Database.

Check out the Civil Rights Book Club for suggested reading about social justice issues.  January’s selections are classic novels. 
Selections from previous months are also available.
Sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the , the Book Club’s monthly selection of books and films are “carefully chosen and reviewed by leaders of today’s progressive movement . . .  to provide context and provoke discussion about today’s top social justice concerns.”
Buying books through the amazon.com link on the Leadership Conference’s web site benefits the organization.

Two new books on the recent Duke University lacrosse team case have been published.

Stuart Taylor’s, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case
and Don Yaeger’s, It’s Not About the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case And the Lives It Shattered.
Both are available at Langdell.

Law Makers, Law Breakers, and Uncommon Trials,
by Robert Aitken and Marilyn Aitken.
Chicago: American Bar Association, 2007

From Charles I to Rosa Parks, Law Makers, Law Breakers, and Uncommon Trials tells the back stories and describes the legal strategies behind twenty-five cases famous for their contribution to the development of the law.

Little Rock on Trial: Cooper v. Aaron and School Desegregation,
by Tony A. Freyer. 
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. 

Fifty years ago this week, nine African American students faced an angry mob barring their entrance to Little Rock Central High School.  The efforts of black citizens and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, led by Thurgood Marshall, took the crisis over school integration to the United State Supreme Court.
The Court unanimously reaffirmed Brown v. Board of Education’s mandate for school integration in the 1958 landmark decision, Cooper v. Aaron.

Little Rock on Trial is the story of the case “includ[ing] the previously untold account of Justice William Brennan’s surprising influence upon Justice Felix Frankfurter’s controversial concurring opinion, which preserved his own ‘deliberate speed’ wording from Brown.”

Trial Courts as Organizations,
by Brian J. Ostrom, Charles W. Ostrom, Jr., Roger A. Hanson, and Matthew Kleiman.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007.

"Substantively, the authors combine trial court scholarship and in particular the conceptions of court workgroups, culture and context with business research that directs attention to private sector organization and management. This combination is truly path-breaking”
—Susette Talarico, Albert Berry Saye Professor of American Government and Constitutional Law and Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science Emerita, University of Georgia


“The authors examine how courts operate, what characteristics they may display, and how they function as a unit to preserve judicial independence, strengthen organizational leadership, and influence court performance. They identify four different types of institutional cultures using a systematic analysis of alternative values on how work is done. Each culture is shown to have its own strengths and weaknesses in achieving values, such as timely case resolution, access to court services, and procedural justice. “

Ivy Briefs: True Tales of a Neurotic Law Student
By Martha Kimes
New York: Atria, 2007

"Martha Kimes has written a One L for the next generation. Ivy Briefs is a great addition to the reading list for anyone even thinking about law school.”
-- Jeremy Blachman, HLS ’05, author of Anonymous Lawyer


Mind you, Martha Kimes attended Columbia Law School.





The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA
By Gordy Slack.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007

“The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything is a well told tale of the clash of two cultures—scientific evolution and intelligent design creationism—in a Federal court of law.  Gordy Slack is a gifted story teller. . .  The Battle is a pleasure to read.”
Francisco J. Ayala, University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine.

We’re All Journalists Now:
The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age
By Scott E. Gant
New York: Free Press, 2007

BiblioFlash: From the New Book Cart

This new book by Scott Gant, HLS ‘95, has been called “must reading for bloggers." Read a Q & A with Gant on Law Blog Metrics or listen to him discuss his work with Diane Rehm.

The Clash Within:
Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future, by
Martha C. Nussbaum

"While America is focused on religious militancy and terrorism in the Middle East, democracy has been under siege from religious extremism in another critical part of the world. As Martha Nussbaum reveals in this penetrating look at India today, the forces of the Hindu right pose a disturbing threat to its democratic traditions and secular state.”

Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics edited by Neil J. Salkind (2007, 3 volumes) located at Langdell Reference HA29.S2363 2007.  With the increased attention to empiricism in legal scholarship, this reference work could be just what the statistically minded lawyer or law student is looking for.  Presented in typical encyclopedia subject arrangement, each of the 500 entries is signed by the contributor and includes a bibliography of further reading.  Volume three has a comprehensive index and master bibliography as well as several appendices including Appendix B: Internet Sites About Statistics.

Key Features

* Covers every major facet of these two different, but highly integrated disciplines—from mean, mode, and median to reliability, validity, significance, correlation, and much more—all without overwhelming the informed reader
* Offers cross-disciplinary coverage, with contributions from and applications to the fields of Psychology, Education, Sociology, Human Development, Political Science, Business and Management, Public Health, and others
* Provides cross-reference terms, further readings, and Web site URLs following most entries, as well as an extensive set of appendices and an annotated list of organizations relevant to measurement and statistics