Law Books

I ordered the Junie B. books for my granddaughter. She loves them! I personally have never read them but I can let you know that at 6 years old and having this interest in reading speaks for itself.

Therefore, I recommend this series.

I bought the first, second and third boxed sets of Junie B Jones books for my granddaughter, who is 5. She can read them, but also likes for her mom to read them to her at night before she goes to sleep. They are funny, interesting and just a whole lot of fun for one so young!!

i purchased this set for my granddaughter. she loves this series and was thrilled to get this.

When my two granddaughters, ages 6 & 7, showed me how excited they were for these books, I was glad to get them for Christmas. Anybody that excited about reading made it a pleasure to buy them.

I bought this set for my granddaughter for Christmas and am already aware that she really enjoys these books. I imagine she will want any continuation of this series.

I have the 2001 edition (first?) and it was very helpful in getting me through my real property class in law school. I've also been using it to help me during bar review, and it's been a godsend in getting me through covenants & equitable servitudes. I would assume the newer edition is even better. I would highly recommend it.

Some of Property is pretty straightforward, and other topics are ridiculously counterintuitive. This book makes it so much easier to put it all together and make it ALL make sense. Especially essential if your prof is the type who likes to hear himself talk and never take questions ...

This book got me through my Property Exam, especially the parts concerning conveyances. If you have a professor who'd rather ramble on for hours on end about conveyances, without really explaining what all the terms mean, then you are going to need this book. The other parts are also helpful -- covenants, nuisance, and restrictions on land use -- but I mainly focused on the conveyance sections.

This book was great at explaining some of the weird property rules that are out there in a way that was very understandable, and most importantly, easy to remember. My property class was only one semester, so we didn't cover everything that was in the book, but I can attest to the personal property stuff, adverse possession, servitudes, landlord-tenant law, zoning, nuisance, and eminent domain.

You will read the cases and go to class, but you can't touch this subject until you've answered fifty questions WRONG. It can either be in this book or on the exam. You decide.

I was disappointed with this book. Almost half of the pages were lined "journal" pages and the projects given were exactly the same as those in the book, The Secret. Could have just done the suggested activities from that book and purchased a blank journal.

If you are interested and believe in the Law of Attraction, this is the book for you. Easy to read, simple to understand and it reinforces the principles by use of exercises. It has changed my life. I have a routine now that I follow as a result of this book and am happier for it. I use the exercises with the forms within the book and the journal to record my feelings.

I must disagree with the previous reviewer. What I liked best about this book is the exercises referred to as recipes. There were over 40 exercises for one to pick from... and there are some similar but most different from The Secret. I personally use approximately 10 and they have changed my life. Try using this workbook and I am sure you will be more than satisfied.

I have been practicing the law of attraction for years, but Living the Secret Everyday: My Secret Workbook is a terrific reminder of the basics to draw what it is that you want into your life. I also like that you write in the book, as it keeps your personal thoughts with the motivational book.

As an interior designer, I have discovered the additional power of using the energy in one's home to manifest your desires. No book describes this process better than HARMONIOUS ENVIRONMENT: BEAUTIFY, DETOXIFY & ENERGIZE YOUR LIFE, YOUR HOME & YOUR PLANET.

Read the books together and manifest all your desires!

Living The Secret Everyday: My Secret Workbook
Oprah was right - they should be teaching this in schools. Teens learn how to practice gratitude, set personal goals, and begin the practice of "possibility thinking". The workbook is very effective and enjoyable, a wonderful sping board for discussion.

Great book with very good detail. The author also has a humorous way of writing which keeps you interested in the topics. I highly recommend

I was skeptical at first, but the book presents a logical discussion of how we can simplify our tax code eliminating the anxiety most everyone faces every April. With the Fair Tax you pay more as you spend more. All corrupt "off the books" money and well as visitors to the US (legal and illegal) help pay for our services and protection. The Fair Tax brings money back to the US from those tax havens and corporations no longer need to move off shore to protect their profits. It is so simple: the more you buy, the more tax gets collected and we do away with the IRS! Read it with an open mind. I gave this copy to a tax preparer to get his opinion. We'll see what he thinks.

This is a GREAT idea! Do not be fooled by some false negative reviews by idiots on here, most of whom have not even read the book!


Read 'Answering the Critics' for more info and clarity.

Lets get politicians on board!

There are many reasons this book is essentially worthless:

1. No corporate taxes? Great, I'll just create a corporation and buy everything I want through it. Anyone who knows this will never pay another dime in taxes again, and the federal government will be bankrupted.

2. The author talks about banning the income tax, but doesn't talk about what will happen to citizens that have already paid taxes to the government to generate a tax free income stream in retirement (Roth and After-Tax accounts). His idea would punish some of those that have planned ahead for retirement.

3. The book explains how the IRS should be abolished, yet doesn't say who would go about collecting taxes. (Note: look up the author's history with the IRS)

4. The idea of taxing food and writing a check for every single American every month to make up for that tax is so stupid I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not.

Admittedly I have not read this book cover to cover yet. I skipped right to the chapter that explains how the FairTax code would work, and I looked at some other chapters briefly to get a gist of what the authors had to say generally. So here are some thoughts based on that.

First off, how is it an invasion of privacy for us to file tax returns with the IRS, but not an invasion of privacy for me to tell the government the makeup of my household, complete with Social Security numbers, so they can send me the proper amount of "prebate"? I don't even have to give that much information on a census form; why would I want to do it for this? So, protecting one's privacy is a stupid reason to do away with the IRS.

Secondly, who says prices would drop if the tax code were radically changed? I only ever see prices drop when something goes on sale. Now, prices might start out lower when a product is introduced because overhead was lower to begin with, but they go up after that; it's almost a law of physics. People want to make money, and far too many people want to make far too much money at the expense of others. I don't like what that says for the potential of this plan to drive up prices to ridiculous levels.

Thirdly, the prebate system is a decent idea--beats the hell out of "helping" Americans afford something through tax credits, which you can only take once a year--but it's based on the government deciding what constitutes basic necessities and how much they should cost. If we can't trust the government for any other reason--and Boortz is a libertarian and surely believes we can't--how can we trust the government to accurately calculate basic cost of living?

I mean, really, take groceries for example. The government in its infinite wisdom has decided that whole grain is good for you and meat is bad, despite whatever evidence to the contrary. In its WIC program alone it's decided that women and children need junk food (cereal) and liquid sugar (fruit juice) above and beyond all else. So its idea of what I "need" for groceries is going to mean I'm out of luck if I actually want to feed my family correctly. Yay?

Also, define "new goods and services." Do I have to pay this twenty-three-percent tax on my residence? Does that mean I have to pay extra on top of my rent? But it's probably not a new building I'm living in. However, it would be new to me.

What about, say, eBay sellers? What if I buy a new product to resell on eBay, but haven't used it before I resell it? Is it still new? If so, wouldn't the tax be paid twice? How is that fair?

Furthermore, for all his liberal-bashing (and I consider myself one), I see Boortz has played right into the hands of a debate that I myself find problematic in liberal thinking: to wit, the idea that someone is wealthy because they have high income. That's stupid and Boortz should know better, which is particularly sad since he wants to position liberals as being guilty of class warfare while he's coming from the opposite perspective. No, he's not. Income is not a determinant of wealth. Net worth is. If you're making $100,000 a year and spending $99,999 of it--and some people do--you will not become wealthy no matter how much the tax code changes. People who really want to be wealthy will become so no matter what the tax code says or what politicians do. The fun part is that once you have the wealth, it reduces your effective tax rate because only when money changes hands is it taxed. Someone who makes that $100k a year will be taxed at the marginal rates for that $100k. Someone who HAS $100k is taxed at a far lower rate and only on the interest or dividends, which are much lower than what you'd have to pull in per month to have made $100k in a year. And because they aren't normal employment income, they aren't subject to the same taxes anyway (i.e., Social Security, etc.).

I'm surprised Boortz doesn't say this, but based on some of his other statements, I'm not surprised. As helpless as he is to (1) fill out tax returns, (2) save, or (3) invest thanks to the existence of the IRS, I'm shocked he's capable of putting his pants on right-side out or tying his own shoes. Most of us manage to do these things just fine if we take responsibility for our own behavior. But given Boortz's propensity for shooting off at the mouth and saying phenomenally stupid things on his radio show and in his other books, I wouldn't bet on his ability to take responsibility for his actions. In fact, I wouldn't even credit him with contributing in any way to the idea for this FairTax code--I suspect he only put his name on it because he agrees with it and wants to give it a wider audience through name recognition. It's a shame Congressman Linder couldn't get a wider audience on his own.

This book has made my life so much easier. I have read lots of books out there and I would have saved a lot of time and money if I had only gotten this book first! It gives simple solutions to problems that most women have after having a baby and trying to breastfeed. This is definately a book worth buying!

I had a lot of difficulty breastfeeding my first child. I wish I had this book seven years ago, it would of eliminated a lot of problems. It is an easy read, with very helpful info not only on technique but avoiding the pitfalls that can sabotage breastfeeding.

This book was written very well. If you are a breastfeeding mom, then put this book on your nightstand because it is a great resource.

I was not successful breasfeeding my first child and was quite determined to make it work with my second. I bought this book after she was born -her doctors were warning me that she wasn't gaining enough weight and I felt that I may not be successful a second time. I read only the chapters that applied and reread them every time I had questions or read further on when we got to a new "phase". I have found it very difficult to get BF advice without getting a load of judgement for bottle feeding. I felt this book was different and just pratical. It was a very helpful book as it made the little querks of BF make sense and answered lots of questions I had. I was able to BF my child and also able to wean her without issues when the time came. I refer this book to all my new mom friends.

I absolutely LOVE this book! I would consider myself an experienced breastfeeder as I nursed my 1st daughterfor 6 months. I am also a nurse in maternal child health at our local hospital. When I became pregnant with our second child (7 years after our first) I decided I needed a refresher. I found it difficult to find a book that covered all the areas I was interested in. Many books did not go into enough detail about things and didn't seem to teach me anything new. This was not the case with this one! It covers things I didn't even know I had questions about like storage capacity and why some babies nurse more frequently than others. I also found out by reading this book that I really never had a good latch with my first daughter! Who knew?! My milk supply decreased when I gave my first daughter solid foods so I wanted a book to explain how to handle that situation this time around. This book does it! It even covers weaning! I like that it explains why breastfeeding is important but also how the formula industry came about. I would recommend this book to any new mom, experienced mom, or even healthcare workers looking for more information to assist their patients.

Ollie North was the greatest man this nation ever made! Don't believe these conspiracy theories! Gary Webb shamed himself with his 100% unsourced crackpot speculations so much that he committed suicide, by two shots *TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD.*

This nation owes a debt of gratitude to Gary Webb. The same people responsible for Iran Contra are still among us.

I did not purchase this product for myself, but my boyfriend really likes the book.

The book is packed with information on an intriguing and eye-opening subject matter. Gary Webb cites what appears to be legitimate references adding credibility to the story's claims. The abundance of information did become overwhelming at times. Although after completing the book I found myself thinking "Right, wrong or indifferent...It all makes perfect sense. There's nothing not to believe about it."

Mr Webb's book here ties in with Rodney
Stich's Flying the Unfriendly Skies and
Bo Gritz troika of bokks during this era!

Aside from the contracts themselves, the author provides you with a negotiating checklist for each contract to help you edit the documents to meet your personal job needs. It also helps prepare you for presenting the contract to your customer. Lots of helpful tips as well.

One type of contract that I found missing is a release that allows a client to print and display the photos without totally transferring the copyright over. I like to keep my own rights to my work, while allowing clients to use them as well.

The index could be easier to use. I tend to have to hunt for some types of contracts. Still, this book is a resource that is well worth it's price.

Good form letters and documents for any photographer. A CD is supplied with a soft copy of the forms. All forms are customizable so an established photographer can cut and paste specific wording for their own documents.

I bought this book and its utter waste of paper and money. There are much better forms available for free to be downloaded from the internet. This book is completely useless for anyone who lives outside USA. I think Americans are smart enough to google the kind of forms they are looking for.

this book is a must if you are a photographer starting a business. the book includes dozens of contracts for most photographic jobs, with a detailed description of each, including the meanings of each section of a contract. the included CD gives you a digital form for each contract, in several file formats, including MS Word and Adobe Acrobat.

This should come in handy for my neice who is getting into photography big time.

I bought this book for my 5-yr.-old son and it was a huge hit. He will look at it for a couple of days and then it's back on the shelf, but it regularly is pulled off again. He loves the little Pokemon-like characters and is getting tonnes of info (as am I) about the elements of the periodic table at the same time. He also makes it a point to tell everyone that there is chromium in our spoons which always catches them off guard :)

This book has almost singlehandedly convinced my 6 year old he wants to be a chemist. He has read it repeatedly, memorized the chemical abbreviations and periodic numbers, learned about protons, neutrons, electrons, etc, and his favorite question to ask a new friend is now "What is your favorite element?" OK, not all kids will geek out this much, but the fun pictures and engaging text may just convince some other children to spend thier braincells on chemistry instead of Pokemon. Highly recommended!

I bought this book for my eight year old daughter. My nine year old son hangs over her shoulder to read along. They will read two or three pages a day every day for a while, then, ignore it for a week or so. I'll think they've lost interest in it, but, nope, it will come out again after a rest. I think there is a chance that, unlike their mother, they will someday pass high school chemistry.

My son, age 6, received this book almost 5 months age. The binding is just about to go - he takes it everywhere and is the only book he willingly reads to himself. Detailed descriptions of the elements are definantly included in the book but unlike my own experience with the elements the author makes it fun. The uses of each element are described so the elements become relevant to even a six year. The included poster is informative and cute enough that he wants to keep it on his wall. The only problem now is to find another chemistry book written so a six year old can understand it.

This book describes over 100 elements of the periodic table from a first-person point of view, making the elements seem like they are people. Each element has a two-page spread, with one page containing information about the element and the other page showing a cartoon picture of the element. The information listed includes the element's symbol, atomic number, color, and date of discovery. Each element then describes its characteristics through a first-person narrative. A glossary and index are available at the end, and a poster of the periodic table with the cartoon pictures is included.

This book is so cute and clever! It makes a topic which can be boring to students into something fun. Having the information written in first person helps to draw the reader into the book because it is more like a story. It includes some information on how the elements are grouped together, but mostly concentrates on describing the individual elements. The poster is an added bonus. My students loved this book! If you teach chemistry, this should definitely be part of your collection.

I would agree with many of the reviewers that this is Posner at his finest. Although I tend to be skeptical of his articulation of pragmatism (especially via his selective use of economic theory), I found that this book really destroys the false binary that posits a clear split between activist and legalist judges.

Going beyond that, Posner also takes clear aim at the legal academy for mistaking the stated reasoning in legal opinions as the cause of a particular decision, rather than its effect. He makes it abundantly clear that legal scholars have lost connection with the judiciary and potentially the legal profession as a whole.

However, I can only give the four stars because the book desperately needed a good editor. Because the chapter are mostly previously published material, they are quite repetitive and probably make the book fifty pages longer than it needs to be. It would have been much better if Posner could have made the argument flow more coherently into a single argument instead of a dozen stand alone claims.

This may be Posner's most important book; certainly the most likely of his books to be read across the political spectrum. Whoever (Obama) wins (Obama) the next election (Obama) would do well to read this before appointing anyone to the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.

Truly well written, well thought out, and well worth reading, especially by those of us on the left.

I found this to be a very significant volume by Judge Posner, since he is writing on several of his strongest areas--legal philosophy, American judges, and theories of judicial decision-making. As the title indicates, this is an enormous topic and even to cover all of Posner's topics in a brief review is impossible. But this is what he is up to:

First, he wants to review existing explanatory theories of judicial behavior: the attitudinal; sociological; economic; organizational; pragmatic; legalistic; and policy choice. Posner here seeks to demonstrate that no one of these theories can wholly explain judicial behavior, and that some other approach he suggests is better suited to do the job.

Posner is quite a creative fellow, extremely well versed in a variety of literatures in addition to the legal. For example, he discusses judges as workers in the judicial system, quite an innovative approach. Next he focuses on judges as "occasional legislators" and what ideology a legislating judge employs. Unconscious preconceptions and intuitions are major topics in this discussion. Posner then shifts to what external and internal constraints limit judicial freedom of decisional action, including precedent, tenure and salary issues, and internal constraints (what we political scientists refer to as "role theory" and small group analysis). Along the way he takes some effective potshots at folks such as LLoyd Weinreib (who argues analogy as the key to legal analysis), the legal process school, "neutral principles" and the Scalia approach to constitutional interpretation. Interestingly enough, law professors are not a major constraint, because they have segregated themselves out of studying and interacting with judges. This is one of the most perceptive chapters in the book.

By chapter 9, Posner is zeroing in on one of his favorite topics--pragmatic adjudication. He argues that pragmatic policy concerns often are the best device for explaining judicial actions because Posner believes these considerations should guide judges. Of course, Judge Posner has written literally reams on this topic, but I found this one of his best discussions. Finally, Posner targets the Supreme Court, "a political court" as he terms it. The limited impact the Court has in policing the Courts of Appeals constitutes an interesting theme here. Posner follows this up with a fine review of Justice Breyer's "Active Libery" and a fascinating discussion of what he terms "judicial cosmopolitanism," or how much foreign legal concepts should play a role in American judicial decision making. This chapter includes highly critical discussions of Beatty's "Ultimate Rule of Law" and Israeli CJ Aharon Barak's "The Judge in a Democracy." Posner can throw critical right jabs with the best of them.

This is a very long book (at around 377 pages). But is it packed with thought stimulating material and arguments, as well as exceptionally useful bibliographic references in the notes (which are actually at the foot of each page). Anyone interested in American judges and what they do, and why they do it, would consider this volume as essential reading.

This man is *cold*. Fortunately for the reader, it is this icy wit that makes reading Posner's books such a joy. Watch how he rips into inconsistencies:

'In discussing a case that invalidated the exclusion of homosexuals from the military, Beatty approvingly remarks that the court "noted the lack of `concrete' and `actual or significant' evidence that allowing gay men to enlist in the armed forces would prejudice its morale, fighting power, or operational effectiveness in any way." He does not require that there be "concrete" and "actual or significant" evidence that homosexuals are harmed by the exclusion. Nor is he bothered by a lack of concreteness when he says that "laws that establish a broadcasting spectrum [must] guarantee that the full spectrum of opinion in the community will be heard." What is "the full spectrum" of opinion, and who is to decide? Must every lunatic have access to a broadcast studio? Beatty contends that government has a constitutional duty to subsidize religious schools but "may make funding conditional on religious schools agreeing to teach the same curriculum that is used in state-run schools." If the curriculum is identical, in what sense are they religious schools?' (internal footnotes omitted)

The point, here as throughout How Judges Think, is to drive a spear into the side of judicial and scholarly hypocrisy. The particular target here, Beatty, is no more or less hypocritical than the rest of us: judges and legal scholars, as much as anyone, pretend that their opinions are more than just opinions. Judges -- especially Supreme Court Justices -- have a fancy term for this, which we as Americans have come to sanctify as The One True Way Of Judging. The fancy term is `textualism' or `originalism' or (as Posner calls it) `legalism.' Legalism is meant to keep the judges out of judging: they're supposed to read the facts of the case, read the relevant precedents, read the text of any relevant statutes, maybe read the legislative history, then decide the case syllogistically. A judge becomes an automaton lacking independent will. This is supposed to keep politics out of the court, and keep us closer to the ideal of "a nation of laws, not men." The law, after all, shouldn't depend on who's enforcing it. This isn't the way actual judges or actual courts work, says Posner; he spends the next 350 pages crisply and efficiently taking down any number of legalist conceptions of judging. He replaces them with his own description of how judging actually works.

Judges also don't spend much time at all deliberating -- at least not in groups. A judge may be internally conflicted over a case, and at times he may actually change his mind on the basis of what others say. But not normally. Normally -- like poor Mr. Beatty, above -- he's either deliberately or subconsciously deploying judicial reasoning, or the appearance of judicial reasoning, in the service of what he already believes to be true. The ultimate source of judicial opinion is emotion: the race you were born into, the economic class you inhabit, whether you worked as a prosecutor or a defense attorney before you reached the Court.

If judges find sophisticated-sounding justifications for conclusions that they reached at the start, what's to stop them from running totally off the rails? Why can't a judge say whatever he wants? Here Posner walks through the range of `judges' -- from paid arbitrators through Federal appellate-court judges, all the way to the Supreme Court. An arbitrator has certain economic motivations: if he's known as thorough and unbiased, he'll get more business; if he tends to land on compromises that make both sides happy, he'll get still more. District court judges are subject to review by the appellate courts. Federal appellate judges have life tenure, insulating them from public opinion -- but they're subject to review by the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justices themselves have a cushy job with limited caseloads and no possibility of review. So where do Supreme Court justices get *their* constraints? The public: if the Court veers too far into cloud cuckoo land, it can expect that the people will revolt and clamor for overriding legislation. The Supreme Court still has constraints.

Judges are "constrained pragmatists," in Posner's terminology. They must choose among conflicting interpretations of the common-law and statute history; a pragmatist chooses by considering the consequences of each interpretation in the light of the law's *intent*, if not its wording. A pragmatic judge doesn't get overly bogged down in the words of the law, when those words are an imperfect guide to what the law was supposed to achieve. This sounds similar to objectives-based regulation: specify the outcome and the intent, and focus less on the implementation. The realization behind this is that society changes quickly, and laws that fixate on the present moment's circumstances will quickly become obsolete.

This was the weakest part of Posner's argument: legislation, says Posner, moves more slowly than the courts do, so it's natural to place some of the burden of its interpretation on the courts. The process of amending the Constitution is tortuous, but Posner never makes it clear why this is a bad thing, or whether legislators actually desire to make the judicial branch a second branch of execution. Posner's argument isn't absurd. Even pragmatist judges operate under constraints, after all: if they strike down perfectly constitutional legislation, remedies up to impeachment are theoretically available. And the public has been trained to be on the lookout for `activist judges'. But to base a large part of the argument for pragmatism on a bare assertion that "it works out better that way for everyone" is odd.

His analyses of how a pragmatist would resolve any number of cases are fascinating. Take the Kelo case, for instance, which allowed the city of New London, Connecticut to seize land by eminent domain for private development. A pragmatist assesses a claim of eminent domain by looking at the original intent of the law, and the economic consequences of granting or withholding the seizure right. The original intent, says Posner, was to prevent individual people from holding a big public-works project hostage: if I'm building a several-thousand-mile-long road, everyone in its path knows that their cooperation is vital. They have, in other words, something like monopoly power, and they can demand exorbitant sale prices for their land. If there's no danger of "holdouts," as these are called, there's no reason to grant the state eminent domain. Moreover, a pragmatist would examine the consequences of granting eminent domain in these cases, would realize that the market is better able to assign just compensation to land sales than the state itself is, and would in effect hand the case over to the market for resolution.

A pragmatist judge, it seems to me, is expected to exercise remarkable foresight. Not only must he know enough about the common and statute law to genuflect appropriately at the law's majesty, but now he must also be able to guess the long-term consequences of a particular taking. This means he must be rather thoroughly educated in economics and statistics. Posner might reply here that it's six of one, half-dozen of another: a non-pragmatist judge only has to convert his gut feelings into the language of precedent, but the outcome of this simpler process is decidedly worse than what a pragmatist -- with his wider scope -- comes up with. If I have Posner right, there's little evidence for this claim in How Judges Think. Indeed, Posner repeatedly critiques judges for a lack of interest or skill in the exact sciences. So what's to make us think that an unschooled pragmatist judge would come up with better decisions overall? Maybe "unschooled pragmatist" is a contradiction in terms?

This reliance on economics, statistics, and science makes it all the more jarring when Posner throws down bare assertions -- as, for instance, when he asserts (p. 306) that the "total misery of the wrongly convicted was not lessened" when the Court increased the rights of criminal defendants in the '60's. Total misery decreases if the average wrongly convicted defendant spends less time in jail, or if fewer people are wrongly convicted to begin with. Posner asserts (with evidence) that defendants spent more time in jail after the '60's, in part because of a legislative backlash against the courts. (It could also be because violent crime increased. Posner himself doesn't engage in much convincing heavy-duty statistical analysis, though he cites plenty.) For his claim to hold, he has to show that the probability of wrongful conviction didn't fall enough to compensate for increased jail time. This he does not do. In general, the pretensions of economists invite skepticism during their falls from the empiricist wagon.

One final note from Posner that I found especially interesting: academics, he says, have grown increasingly distant from the actual practice of judging. One consequence is that law students learn the very artificial academic view of how judicial decisions are made. Law students, in a word, are trained to be legalists. They come to expect that judges are the automata they read about in class. Students learn that if they want to convince judges of anything, all they need to do is read a long litany of precedent; the judge will be forced, through logic alone, to accept their conclusions. They import this conceit into the courtroom and get nowhere with it. If legal academia were more in line with how judging actually worked, law students would learn to address judges pragmatically. As it is, even a decorated legal scholar like Larry Lessig -- a man who clerked for Scalia and Posner, in fact -- didn't understand quite how to talk to Supremes:

"Here was a case that pitted all the money in the world against *reasoning*. And here was the last naïve law professor, scouring the pages, looking for reasoning."

My god, what a boring book this was. It was written like a law review article and nothing is more boring than a law review article (unless you are doing research). I was hoping for some down to earth conversation about how judges think, something that was an easy read. This was NOT an easy read was just BORING. I didn't even finish it. It was like a lecture on paper.