Over the past several decades, the number of lawyers in large cities has doubled, women have entered the bar at an unprecedented rate, and the scale of firms has greatly expanded. This immense growth has transformed the nature and social structure of the legal profession. In the most comprehensive analysis of the urban bar to date, "Urban Lawyers" presents a compelling portrait of how these changes continue to shape the field of law today.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Chicago lawyers, the authors demonstrate how developments in the profession have affected virtually every aspect of the work and careers of urban lawyers-their relationships with clients, job tenure and satisfaction, income, social and political values, networks of professional connections, and patterns of participation in the broader community. Yet despite the dramatic changes, much remains the same. Stratification of income and power based on gender, race, and religious background, for instance, still maintains inequality within the bar.
The authors of "Urban Lawyers" conclude that organizational priorities will likely determine the future direction of the legal profession. And with this landmark study as their guide, readers will be able to make their own informed predictions.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is actively seeking ways for member countries to enhance their individual economic development within the context of overall regional advancement. Central to this is the creation of a regional intellectual property framework. This book examines the efforts to move beyond sovereign protections of intellectual property rights and establish meaningful inter-state cooperation on intellectual property issues. Rather than aim for IP harmonization, ASEAN recognizes its internal diversity and pursues an agenda of 'IP Interoperability'. The essays in this collection examine the unique dynamics of 'interoperability', analyzing the administration of intellectual property in a part of the world that is of increasing importance. The book enables the reader to compare and contrast the ASEAN model to other approaches in regional cooperation, such as Europe and Latin America, and also explores private international law as a potential vehicle for interoperability.

Oliver Wendell Holmes escaped death twice as a young Union officer in the Civil War. He lived ever after with unwavering moral courage, unremitting scorn for dogma, and an insatiable intellectual curiosity. During his nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, he wrote a series of opinions that would prove prophetic in securing freedom of speech, protecting the rights of criminal defendants, and ending the Court's reactionary resistance to social and economic reforms. As a pioneering legal scholar, Holmes revolutionized the understanding of common law. As an enthusiastic friend, he wrote thousands of letters brimming with an abiding joy in fighting the good fight. Drawing on many previously unpublished letters and records, Stephen Budiansky offers the fullest portrait yet of this pivotal American figure.

Traditional forms of mentoring and coaching have always been at the heart of the legal profession. It is not so long ago that in order to become a lawyer, one did not attend law school, but instead had to be mentored by a senior member of the profession for a fixed number of years. The requirement to attend law school is now universal, but the need for mentoring and coaching in the legal profession has not disappeared; it is developing at a high speed and for good reasons. Misconceptions about mentoring and coaching in law firms often prevent productive relationships from forming. These misconceptions include beliefs that mentoring is beneficial to mentees but does not add value to the mentors; an assumption that it is human resources' responsibility to develop people; and queries about why today's lawyers need coaching, given that they receive more formal training than previous generations. This practical new handbook, coordinated by Rebecca Normand-Hochman on behalf of the International Bar Association, explores and challenges some of these assumptions. Featuring chapters by well-respected experts in the field of mentoring and coaching, chapters cover topics including leadership coaching for law firm leaders; mentoring and coaching for lawyers at various stages of their careers; and mentoring and coaching for successful onboarding of lawyers, among other topics. The various chapters provide guidance and insight to law firm leaders and talent management managers for them to discover how they can turn mentoring and coaching into a source of competitive advantage by improving client service, attracting and retaining the best talent, and enhancing the utilisation of human capital. The book will also be of interest to lawyers seeking to discover how they can generate productive relationships to acquire the intangible skills and knowledge required to excel in today's practice of law.

What makes a great judge? How are reputations forged? Why do some reputations endure, while others crumble? And how can we know whether a reputation is fairly deserved? In this ambitious book, Richard Posner confronts these questions in the case of Benjamin Cardozo. The result is both a revealing portrait of one of the most influential legal minds of our century and a model for a new kind of study--a balanced, objective, critical assessment of a judicial career. "The present compact and unflaggingly interesting volume ...is a full-bodied scholarly biography...It is illuminating in itself, and will serve as a significant contribution."--Paul A. Freund, New York Times Book Review

Since many legal disputes are battles over the meaning of a statute, contract, testimony, or the Constitution, judges must interpret language in order to decide why one proposed meaning overrides another. And in making their decisions about meaning appear authoritative and fair, judges often write about the nature of linguistic interpretation. In the first book to examine the linguistic analysis of law, Lawrence M. Solan shows that judges sometimes inaccurately portray the way we use language, creating inconsistencies in their decisions and threatening the fairness of the judicial system.
Solan uses a wealth of examples to illustrate the way linguistics enters the process of judicial decision making: a death penalty case that the Supreme Court decided by analyzing the use of adjectives in a jury instruction; criminal cases whose outcomes depend on the Supreme Court's analysis of the relationship between adverbs and prepositional phrases; and cases focused on the meaning of certain words in the Constitution. Solan finds that judges often describe our use of language poorly because there is no clear relationship between the principles of linguistics and the jurisprudential goals that the judge wishes to promote.
A major contribution to the growing interdisciplinary scholarship on law and its social and cultural context, Solan's lucid, engaging book is equally accessible to linguists, lawyers, philosophers, anthropologists, literary theorists, and political scientists.

This engaging ethnography examines the gendered nature of today's large corporate law firms. Although increasing numbers of women have become lawyers in the past decade, Jennifer Pierce discovers that the double standards and sexist attitudes of legal bureaucracies are a continuing problem for women lawyers and paralegals.
Working as a paralegal, Pierce did ethnographic research in two law offices, and her depiction of the legal world is quite unlike the glamorized version seen on television. Pierce tellingly portrays the dilemma that female attorneys face: a woman using tough, aggressive tactics--the ideal combative litigator--is often regarded as brash or even obnoxious by her male colleagues. Yet any lack of toughness would mark her as ineffective.
Women paralegals also face a double bind in corporate law firms. While lawyers depend on paralegals for important work, they also expect these women--for most paralegals are women--to nurture them and affirm their superior status in the office hierarchy. Paralegals who mother their bosses experience increasing personal exploitation, while those who do not face criticism and professional sanction. Male paralegals, Pierce finds, do not encounter the same difficulties that female paralegals do.
Pierce argues that this gendered division of labor benefits men politically, economically, and personally. However, she finds that women lawyers and paralegals develop creative strategies for resisting and disrupting the male-dominated status quo. Her lively narrative and well-argued analysis will be welcomed by anyone interested in today's gender politics and business culture.