Category Archives: Book Review

Librarians review books in the Brooklyn Law Library collection.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day and History

On Monday, February 20, in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Brooklyn Law School will cancel all classes and close most of its offices. The BLS Library will be open from 9am to 10pm.

Brooklyn Law School is providing an opportunity to participate in the National Martin Luther King Day of Service. On Monday, January 20 2014, BLS students will join thousands of volunteers across the country as they take the opportunity to carry on Dr. King’s mission of service to others. BLSA and BLSPI are spearheading a day of service by recruiting volunteers to participate in a Read-A-Thon from 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM at PS 375 Mosaic Prep Academy at 141 E. 111 St., New York, NY 10029. Volunteers will work with students as they practice their reading skills. BLS students who want to participate can meet up in the BLS Courtyard at 9:30 AM. For more information on the Read-A-Thon, visit: www.allforgood.org.

Dr. King, the most important voice of the American civil rights movement, was born on January 15, 1929 and is only the third American whose birthday is recognized as a federal holiday. In 1964, Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize at age 35, the youngest person ever to receive this high honor. He donated the prize money from that award to help fund his fight for civil rights in America. Four years later, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

The BLS Library’s first floor book display case features several print items about Dr. King including the 1978 King: A Biography by David L. Lewis (Call # E185.97.K5 L485 1978). It notes that Dr. King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. During his term, he traveled and spoke wherever there was injustice, protest and action. He led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world and provided what he titled a “Coalition of Conscience” inspiring him to write his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. The letter became a call to action that started the Civil Rights revolution, with its drives in Alabama for voter registration for blacks, and the March on Washington, where he delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech” in front of 250,000 people.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the morality of legal practice

A newer book, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Morality of Legal Practice: Lessons in Love and Justice by Robert K. Vischer (Call # KF373.K523 V57 2013), looks at our understanding of the lawyer’s work by exploring how Dr. King built his advocacy on a clear set of moral claims regarding the demands of love and justice in light of human nature. Dr. King never shirked from staking out challenging claims of moral truth, even while remaining open to working with those who rejected those truths. His example is an inspiration for the legal profession and a reminder that truth-telling has the capacity to move hearts and minds. Dr. King’s success would have been impossible absent his substantive views about human nature and the ends of justice.

In addition to the print items, the display case has a page from the BLS Library’s digital copy of Becoming King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Making of a National Leader.

 

Law School Lowdown

Brooklyn Law School Library’s latest New Books List  with its 55 items is now available thanks to the efforts of Cataloging Librarian Jeff Gabel. The titles on the list cover a wide range of subjects from abortion law and legislation to corporation law, from criminal justice to labor law, and from social media to  rent control in New York.

Law School LowdownOne title of practical interest to law students is Law School Lowdown: Secrets of Success from the Application Process to Landing the First Job (Call # KF283 .S37 2013) by Ian E. Scott. The author, a New York attorney and graduate of Harvard Law School, successfully completed the New York and New Jersey bar examinations and worked at Cleary Gottlieb’s litigation and corporate groups. Since then, he opened his own law practice, Scott Legal Services, P.C., which specializes in new business setup and business immigration.

This practical guide for success has tips on pitfalls to avoid and serves as a blueprint for legal accomplishment on a number of topics including:

  • The law school application process and tips on taking the important Law School Admission Test (LSAT)
  • Selecting a law school, applying for scholarships, and deciding between top-ranked and lower-ranked schools
  • Making the grade during that vital first year at law school
  • The best courses to take in second and third years
  • The advantages of publishing papers while in law school
  • Seeking out summer positions at law firms
  • Taking and passing state bar exams
  • Finding employment at a law firm after graduation
  • Other post-law school options, including judicial clerkships

The book’s useful appendices has yet more advice, and includes a completed model law school application form, effective résumés, and a model brief of a case for class. Based on his own law school experiences, Law School Lowdown addresses both the rigors and satisfactions that comprise the law school experience, offering the advice to will pave the way to a successful career in law. A companion blog called Law School Lowdown: The Site for Practical Law School Success Tips offers additional advice.

Regulating the Digital Investigative State

This week, University of Illinois College of Law Assistant Professor Law Stephen Rushin discussed his article The Legislative Response to Mass Police Surveillance scheduled for publication in volume 79 of the Brooklyn Law Review. The abstract for the article reads:

Police departments have rapidly adopted mass surveillance technologies in an effort to fight crime and improve efficiency. I have previously described this phenomenon as the growth of the digitally efficient investigative state. This new technological order transforms traditional law enforcement by improving the efficiency of everyday policing activities and retaining copious amounts of data on both suspicious and unsuspicious behavior. Empirical evidence shows that police surveillance technologies are common and rapidly expanding in urban America. In the absence of legislative action, police departments have adopted widely disparate internal policies. The Supreme Court had the opportunity to reign in the scope of police surveillance in Jones v. United States. But the Court could not agree on whether technological improvements in efficiency transform an otherwise legal policing tactic into an unconstitutional search. Nor could the Court agree on whether a person may have a reasonable expectation to privacy in public movement. Post-Jones, the jurisprudence of police surveillance emerged as incoherent as ever.

I have previously argued that the judiciary should regulate police surveillance technologies. While it remains possible that the judiciary will someday make such a doctrinal shift, the immediate responsibility for regulating police surveillance technology falls on state legislatures. In this Article, I offer a model statute to regulate mass police surveillance. The model statute limits indiscriminate data collection. It also caps data retention for personally identifiable information. It excludes from criminal court any locational evidence obtained in violation of the statute. And it gives the state attorney general authority to bring suit against police departments that fail to abide by the law. This legislation would give discretion to police departments to craft data policies fitting their city’s unique needs, while also encouraging consistency and fairness.

The 20 minute interview, available here, aired on Law and Disorder Radio, a weekly radio program, addresses law enforcement use of different technological replacements for traditional behavior. At first, these innovations seemed a good thing but recently local law enforcement began to utilize extreme data retention using Automatic License Plate Readers and security cameras with facial recognition. These tools allow law enforcement to monitor an entire community invasively without invading any legally protected areas of privacy. As a result, the public is just beginning to learn the dangers of big data collection by the state. His proposal deals with the length of time local law enforcement retain data.

Surveillance

Tracking and surveillance technology facilitates unprecedented levels of data collection about individuals, often without their knowledge or consent. Government use of that technology has generated controversy and questions about civil liberties and privacy rights, How, or if, government can use these technologies responsibly is a major issue. For more on the subject, see the BLS Library copy of Privacy and Surveillance With New Technologies by Peter P. Swire and Kenesa Ahmad (Call # KF5399 .P75 2012). It offers an overview of government surveillance using new technology and selects five issues (Video surveillance, Border searches of electronic devices, Communication surveillance, Location surveillance, and online tracking) that present complex challenges to civil liberty advocates and government officials alike.

Gettysburg Address: 150th Anniversary

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, site of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War in July of that with more than 7000 killed. Gettysburg attorney David Wills and local officials planned an elaborate dedication ceremony for a national cemetery for the fallen soldiers, inviting state governors, members of Congress, and cabinet members, and prominent orator Edward Everett as the keynote speaker. At the last minute, Willis asked President Lincoln to make a few remarks probably thinking he would not attend or simply deliver a few platitudes. But President Lincoln delivered a two-minute speech that redefined the nation. In a mere ten sentences of about 270 words, Lincoln delivered one of the most important political speeches in American history, one often called the Second Declaration of Independence.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln's CounselThe Gettysburg Address still matters today. Brooklyn Law School Library’s copy of Lincoln’s Counsel: Lessons from America’s Most Persuasive Speaker by Arthur Rizer (Call # KF368.L52 R59 2010), calls it the Greatest Closing Argument Ever Made: “Even today, brevity in closing arguments isn’t universally appreciated. If an attorney gave a three-minute closing argument, he may be sued for malpractice. Despite this, with the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln used his skills as a persuasive litigator to breathe life into a cause that was costing so much human life. The speech was more than simple dedicatory remarks for a memorial site. He set out a position that advocated why his position was correct, much as a lawyer does in making a closing argument, and he did it quickly and beautifully.”  More importantly, President Lincoln rededicated the nation to the principle of human equality, and to a government that reflected that equality by advancing the economic interests of all Americans. Now, as then, most Americans back Lincoln’s vision and now, as then, some still oppose those principles for both racial and economic reasons.

Social Media: Academic and Legal Risks

An article in the NY Times titled They Loved Your GPA. Then They Saw Your Tweets recently pointed out the consequences of inappropriate postings on social media. The article reads:

As certain high school seniors work meticulously this month to finish their early applications to colleges, some may not realize that comments they casually make online could negatively affect their prospects. In fact, new research from Kaplan Test Prep, the service owned by the Washington Post Company, suggests that online scrutiny of college hopefuls is growing.

Of 381 college admissions officers who answered a Kaplan telephone questionnaire this year, 31% said they had visited an applicant’s Facebook or other personal social media page to learn more about them — a five-percentage-point increase from last year. More crucially for those trying to get into college, 30% of the admissions officers said they had discovered information online that had negatively affected an applicant’s prospects.

Social MediaHigh school students are not the only ones who need to exercise discretion when using social media. Touro Law School Assistant Professor of Law Jonathan Ezor’s PowerPoint presentation Law Students Tweeting Badly demonstrates that law students need to use caution as well.  Beyond the world of academia, an item in Brooklyn Law School Library’s November New Books List shows that the problem goes much further. Social Media: Legal Risk & Corporate Policy by Fordham Law School Adjunct Law Professor Adam I. Cohen (Call #KF390.5.C6 C576 2013)  shows that lawyers and jurists, corporate policymakers, and government regulatory agencies have only just begun to address the practical business and legal risk issues raised by the proliferation of social media channels and content.

The book explores the implications suggested by the precursors of a forthcoming tidal wave of social media-related civil litigation, the spectrum of potential corporate policy approaches to reducing the risks inherent in social media use, and the social media service privacy policy minefield that all social media participants, corporate and individual, will have to navigate if they want to optimize what little control they have over information shared by using social media. The book’s highlights include the practical litigation implications of social media cases likely to be of relevance to business enterprises are examined; the issue of attorney ethics in a social media context; civil cases that have involved social media are discussed and classified by type; the reasons for having a corporate social media policy; a discussion of the fundamental areas generally covered by social media policies; and a policy creation “toolkit” that organizes and provides sample provisions with which to build a social media policy are included.

New Books List for September 2013

The Brooklyn Law School Library has released its New Books List – September 12, 2013. The list is accessible on the SARA Library Catalog at this link. Among the 67 titles are these seven with particular interest to law students as they prepare for the practice of law:

Understanding the Federal Deficit Debate

As the August 2nd deadline looms, the debate continues to rage over the federal government’s fiscal health.   If you would like to learn more about this issue, the BLS Library has several resources you can consult.

Alan J. Auerbach & William G. Gale, Brookings Inst., Tempting Fate the Federal Budget Outlook (2011).

Excerpt taken from the report’s abstract: 

We present new estimates of the budget outlook, based on the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare and Social Security Trustee reports. The medium-term and long-term budget outlook have not changed appreciably since last year. Under reasonable assumptions, the federal government is likely to face deficits in excess of 6 percent of GDP by late in the decade, even with a strong economy, with the debt-GDP ratio reaching 98 percent by 2021. The long-term budget outlook is sensitive to assumptions about how health care spending will respond to recent legislation. However, even under the most optimistic assumptions regarding health care spending, the most likely estimate suggests a long-term fiscal gap of between 6 and 7 percent of GDP. Policy makers and the public will eventually be forced to address these issues, but addressing them sooner rather than waiting until a full-blown crisis hits would allow for more reasonable and gradual adjustments.

 U.S. Cong. Budget Office, Reducing the Deficit Spending and Revenue Options (2011).

Excerpt taken from the report’s preface:

The report begins with an introductory chapter that describes the current budgetary picture and the uses and limitations of this volume. Chapters 2 and 3 present options that would reduce mandatory and discretionary spending, respectively. Chapter 4 contains options that would increase revenues from various kinds of taxes and fees. The options discussed in this report stem from a variety of sources, including legislative proposals, various Administrations’ budget proposals, Congressional staff, other government entities, and private groups. The options are intended to reflect a range of possibilities rather than to provide a ranking of priorities or a comprehensive list. The inclusion or exclusion of a particular policy change does not represent an endorsement or rejection by CBO. In keeping with CBO’s mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, this report makes no recommendations.

U.S. Nat’l Comm’n on Fiscal Responsibility & Reform, U.S. White House Office, The Moment of Truth Report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility & Reform (2010).

 Excerpt taken from the report’s preamble:

As members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, we spent the past eight months studying the same cold, hard facts. Together, we have reached these unavoidable conclusions: The problem is real. The solution will be painful. There is no easy way out. Everything must be on the table. And Washington must lead.

We come from different backgrounds, represent different regions, and belong to different parties, but we share a common belief that America’s long-term fiscal gap is unsustainable and, if left unchecked, will see our children and grandchildren living in a poorer, weaker nation. In the words of Senator Tom Coburn, “We keep kicking the can down the road, and splashing the soup all over our grandchildren.” Every modest sacrifice we refuse to make today only forces far greater sacrifices of hope and opportunity upon the next generation.

Daniel N. Shaviro, Do Deficits Matter? (1997).

Review from the Library Journal:

Federal budget deficits have long fueled public-policy debates. Law professor Shaviro traces these debates back several centuries, showing how they developed. Then, considering ways in which the deficit might matter, he presents the case both for and against its impact. Deficits have macroeconomic and generational influences, he concludes, but it is not clear whether these influences are positive or negative. Contrary to much commonly held opinion, Shaviro does not view deficits as necessarily bad. He argues that the deficit, a cash accrual measure subject to manipulation, is a flawed indicator of budgetary effects. He also discusses Social Security and the value of a balanced-budget amendment. The author’s background as a legislation attorney shows in his insightful analysis of political gamesmanship and the unintended consequences of legislation. Shaviro’s history, economics, and political analysis are right on the mark. Copyright © 1997, Reed Business Information Inc.

David P. Calleo, The Bankrupting of America: How the Federal Budget Is Impoverishing the Nation (1992).

Review from Kirkus Reviews:

An exacting audit by Calleo (European Studies/Johns Hopkins) of the federal government’s mismanagement of financial affairs, and of the resultant risks. Drawing on Washington’s own data, Calleo explores how and why budget deficits have grown to levels that make them engines of national decline. He sheds light on a wealth of ad rem subjects- -e.g., changes in spending priorities over the 1950-90 period; exploitation of the dollar’s international stature (i.e., borrowing abroad to avoid domestic adjustments); manipulative monetary policies (which relied on inflation to underwrite fiscal shortfalls); and the grave implications of current fiscal trends in the context of likely demographic, geopolitical, and socioeconomic developments. The author also puts the country’s income/outgo situation in perspective by comparing its not altogether analogous expenditure patterns after WW II with those of France and Germany. Calleo concludes that inefficiency and waste rather than excessively self-indulgent consumption are root causes of US problems, and he decries unregulated markets that, in his view, have proved wholly inadequate substitutes for a stable currency and allied common goods. While unpersuaded that a peace dividend will make any real contribution to genuine prosperity, Calleo remains sanguine on the prospects for US renewal. His remedial prescriptions, however, are appreciably less specific than his detailed diagnosis. If nothing else, though, Calleo’s principled plea for a more rational balance between the power to govern and the capacity of special-interest groups to obstruct merits consideration, as does his unabashed appeal that the electorate and its leaders embrace the generous, visionary ideals that long made America a tower of economic strength and a beacon of hope. A challenging, fully documented tract addressing the overleveraged and frequently dysfunctional state of the union. The text brims with helpful tabular material. — Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP.

Let’s Look at Law Student Study Aids

Hornbooks Series: Hornbooks are published by West Group. These are one volume mini‐treatises that summarize explain the law on subjects like criminal law, employment discrimination, property and real estate finance. Hornbooks provide an overview of the legal doctrines, principles, and rules, focusing only on the most important issues and cases for the area of law being covered. Brooklyn Law School Library has both Hornbook series practitioner’s edition and Hornbook series student edition.

Understanding Series: The Understanding series is published by LexisNexis and written by legal scholars.  They provide straightforward, clear analysis of a particular area of law highlighting important issues and citing leading authority. Like hornbooks, the Understanding series is written with law students in mind and tend to provide the most detail on the more complex issues. The Understanding series typically provides less treatment to each topic than hornbooks, but significantly more than Nutshells.  Brooklyn Law School Library has over fifty Understanding series titles covering administrative law, bankruptcy, conflicts of laws, criminal procedure, and evidence.

Examples and Explanations Series: Examples and Explanations series are published by Aspen, a branch of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.  Each title begins with a general introduction to a topic and a basic explanation of the major issues specific to that area of law. Also included are a series of examples and corresponding explanations that provide analysis of the examples. The examples range from the simple to the more complex to help students apply their knowledge, and thus better understand complex concepts. Brooklyn Law School Library has a growing collection of this series covering many topics including trusts and estates, evidence, torts, criminal law, and civil procedure.

Nutshells Series: The Nutshell series is published by West Group and consist of short, one volume paperbacks that present a general overview of an area of law and provide citations to leading authority. Nutshells should not be used as a source of in‐depth treatment and analysis because they give just enough information to provide students with a general understanding of major concepts, polUnderstanding Law Student Study Aidsicies and relevant rules for any given topic.  Brooklyn Law School Library has over five hundred titles in this series dating back to the 1960’s. Library users will find Nutshells on many 1L subjects and also on more advanced subjects like toxic torts, elder law, sea law, electronic discovery and international human rights.

The Poisoner’s Handbook

Discover the poisons that brought New York City to its knees in “The poisoner’s handbook : murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age” by Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, Deborah Blum.

The heroes of her book are Charles Norris, New York City’s first Medicinal Examiner, and Alexander Gettler, his able assistant and expert toxicologists. From the vantage of the New York City Medical Examiner’s Laboratory, it also becomes clear that murderers are not the only toxic threat–modern life has created a poisonous playground, and danger lurks around every corner.

“The Poisoner’s Handbook” is structured like a collection of linked short stories. Each chapter centers on a mysterious death by poison that Norris and Gettler investigate. Blum also focuses on the real villains – the poisons – and their deadly maneuverings through the body.

The chapters detail Norris’ death investigations and are classified according to the chemical compound detected in corpses by Gettler. Described are a suite of deadly substances including chloroform; bad booze because of Prohibition; industrial toxins such as radium; and carbon monoxide from illumination gas and automobile exhausts. In each chapter It is a contest between murder suspects and Gettler’s laboratory methods, which improved markedly during the decade.

Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and the need to create revolutionary experiments to tease out the wiliest chemical compounds from human tissue and perform trailblazing chemical detective work. Blum sets forth the facts of such cases, attentive to chemical clues the suspect overlooked but Gettler didn’t. Formative figures in forensics, Norris and Gettler become fascinating crusaders in Blum’s fine depiction of their work in the law-flouting atmosphere of Prohibition-era New York.

The fruits of their labors helped advance government policy and the science of forensics, and have saved countless lives from exposure to previously hard-to-detect toxic substances like thallium and to the then unknown deadly effects of radium, once a crucial ingredient in a popular health tonic called “Radithor: Certified Radioactive Water.”

According to the New York Times, “there is no music in Blum’s “Jazz Age,” a descriptor that feels tacked on to the subtitle by the marketing department, but there are “jazz-flavored cocktails” aplenty. After all, it’s Prohibition, and the government’s efforts to make alcohol less desirable by adding poisons to it constitute one of her most alarming and worthy plots. In this woozy speakeasy atmosphere, unforgettable stories abound. Take “Mike the Durable,” who initially survives even after his killers try numerous ways to do him in. There is also the lovers Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, who inspired James M. Cain’s novels “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and “Double Indemnity.” Ultimately, “The Poisoner’s Handbook” fascinates.”

Secret Lives of the Supreme Court: A Book Review (Posted by Karen Schneiderman)

Secret Lives of the Supreme Court: What Your Teachers Never Told You About America's Legendary Justices/Robert Schnakenberg
Secret Lives of the Supreme Court: What Your Teachers Never Told You About America’s Legendary Justices
Robert Schnakenberg, KF8744 .S3 2009

Several years ago, I had the privilege of being sworn into the United States Supreme Court Bar. It was the day after Justice David Souter was mugged.

As watched the justices take their seats, I was reminded that the justices were mere humans. They rocked back and forth in their large imposing chairs, tapped their fingers impatiently, and in one case, I saw a justice, who shall remain anonymous, take a short nap.

The humanity and the humor of the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) is captured in Robert Schnakenberg’s latest book, Secret Lives of the Supreme Court: What Your Teachers Never Told You About America’s Legendary Justices.

Schnakenberg exposes these wizards behind the bench. For example, in Secret Lives, we learn that Sandra Day O’Connor created the court’s first Jazzercise class; Thurgood Marshall was hooked on soap operas; and that one of the justices was a member of the KKK. To learn more fun facts, just pick up this title at Brooklyn Law School Library.

While it is true that some SCOTUS historians have panned Schnakenberg’s book, they seems to assume that this title is intended to be “serious literature.”

This book might be just what aspiring lawyers and hard working law school professors need. Especially to prepare for the Senate’s upcoming debate and vote on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. I submit that this book is just the antidote: fascinating romp into the powerful halls of SCOTUS, filled with large doses of sophomoric humor. We all deserve a good laugh!

Robert Schnakenberg lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults, Sci-Fi Baby Names, Secret Lives of Great Authors, and The Encyclopedia Shatnerica—the world’s first A-to-Z guide to the life and career of William Shatner.