'David Howarth's Law as Engineering is a profound contribution to the law. Evoking the level of originality associated with pioneering contributions to law and economics half a century ago, Howarth's book aligns law, not on economics, but on engineering styles of thought and problem solving. His analysis sheds deep light on a 21st century world where the work of transactional and legislative lawyers, who design and build social structures and devices much as engineers do physical ones, is becoming ever more important and complex, with far-reaching implications for both legal ethics and legal education.' - Scott Boorman, Professor, Yale University, US 'This is a brilliant, highly original analysis of what lawyers actually do and what they ought to do in order to protect their clients and the public. It will rescue lawyers from the kinds of behaviour that contributed to the financial crash. It also points legal education and research in important new directions.' - Sir Bob Hepple, Professor, QC FBA 'This book brings an important new perspective to a consideration of what lawyers do, and of what they are for. The implications explored in the book are an immensely valuable contribution to thinking on the future development of legal education and training. It should be read by everyone responsible for recruiting or training others for the law, whether in the public or the private sector.' - Sir Stephen Laws KCB, QC(Hon), LLD(Hon), First Parliamentary Counsel Law as Engineering proposes a radically new way of thinking about law, as a profession and discipline concerned with design rather than with litigation, and having much in common with engineering in the way it produces devices useful for its clients. It uses that comparison to propose ways of improving legal design, to advocate a transformation of legal ethics so that the profession learns from its role in the crash of 2008, and to reform legal education and research. Offering a totally new perspective, this book will be a fascinating read for law students and prospective law students, legal academics across all sub-fields, lawyers in government, especially those engaged in drafting legislation, and policymakers. Contents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. What do Lawyers do? 3. Law as Engineering 4. Implications (1) - Professional Ethics 5. Implications (2) - Legal Research and Teaching 6. Conclusion Bibliography Index

In this biography of Joaquín de Arredondo, historian Bradley Folsom brings to life one of the most influential and ruthless leaders in North American history. Arredondo (1776-1837), a Bourbon loyalist who governed Texas and the other interior provinces of northeastern New Spain during the Mexican War of Independence, contended with attacks by revolutionaries, U.S. citizens, generals who had served in Napoleon's army, pirates, and various American Indian groups, all attempting to wrest control of the region. Often resorting to violence to deal with the provinces' problems, Arredondo was for ten years the most powerful official in northeastern New Spain. Folsom's lively account shows the challenges of governing a vast and inhospitable region and provides insight into nineteenth-century military tactics and Spanish viceregal realpolitik. When Arredondo and his army - which included Arredondo's protégé, future president of Mexico Antonio López de Santa Anna - arrived in Nuevo Santander in 1811, they quickly suppressed a revolutionary upheaval. Arredondo went on to expel an army of revolutionaries and invaders from the United States who had taken over Texas and declared it an independent republic. In the Battle of Medina, the bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas, he crushed the insurgents and followed his victory with a purge that reduced Texas's population by half. Over the following eight years, Arredondo faced fresh challenges to Spanish sovereignty ranging from Comanche and Apache raids to continued American incursion. In response, Arredondo ignored his superiors and ordered his soldiers to terrorize those who disagreed with him. Arredondo's actions had dramatic repercussions in Texas, Mexico, and the United States. His decision to allow Moses Austin to colonize Texas with Americans would culminate in the defeat of Santa Anna in 1836, but not before Santa Anna had made good use of the lessons in brutality he had learned so well from his mentor.

Treat yourself to Second Helpings and more choice cuts in the style of Simon Brown's much lauded first volume of memoirs, Playing off the Roof & Other Stories. Exuberantly revisiting his early years in National Service, at Oxford and as a young barrister, Lord Brown recalls matters grave and trivial from his time at the Bar and on the Bench, along the way regaling us with tales of Paddington Bear, Nigel Lawson and Mozart at the Warsaw opera. He also has something to say about the current legal scene and considers such thorny problems as the 2019 prorogation judgment and whether trial by jury might be dispensed with in order to clear a mounting backlog of criminal cases. Drawing witty lessons from a life of trials, Lord Brown finds time to muse on when a judge might choose to change a sentence already imposed, what to say after dinner and why the game of golf is strictly for the birds!

Bulelwa Mabasa was born into a ‘matchbox’ family home in Meadowlands, Soweto, at the height of apartheid. In My Land Obsession, she shares her colourful Christian upbringing, framed by the lived experiences of her grandparents, who endured land dispossession in the form of the Group Areas Act and the migrant labour system.

Bulelwa’s world was irrevocably altered when she encountered the disparities of life in a white-dominated school. Her ongoing interest in land justice informed her choice to study law at Wits, with the land question becoming central in her postgraduate studies. When Bulelwa joined the practice of law in the early 2000s as an attorney, she felt a strong need to build on her curiosity around land reform, moving on to form and lead a practice centred on land reform at Werksmans Attorneys. She describes the role played by her mentors and the professional and personal challenges she faced.

My Land Obsession sets out notable legal cases Bulelwa has led and lessons that may be drawn from them, as well as detailing her contributions to national policy on land reform and her views on how the land question must be inhabited and owned by all South Africans.

This book is the first monograph to analyse the workings of Scotland's legal profession in its early modern European context. It is a comprehensive survey of lawyers working in the local and central courts; investigating how they interacted with their clients and with each other, the legal principles governing ethical practice, and how they fulfilled a social role through providing free services to the poor and also services to town councils and other corporations. Based heavily on a wide range of archival sources, and reflecting the contemporary importance of local societies of lawyers, John Finlay offers a groundbreaking yet accessible study of the eighteenth-century legal profession which adds a new dimension to our knowledge of Enlightenment Scotland.

This book examines why laws fail and provides strategies for making laws that work. Why do some laws fail? And how can we make laws that actually work? This helpful guide, written by a leading jurist, provides answers to these questions and gives practical strategies for law-making. It looks at a range of laws which have failed; the 'damp squibs' that achieve little or nothing in practice; laws that overshoot their policy goals; laws that produce nasty surprises; and laws that backfire, undermining the very goals they were intended to advance. It goes on to examine some of the reasons why such failures occur, drawing on insights from psychology and economics, including the work of Kahneman and others on how humans develop narratives about the ways in which the world works and make predictions about the future. It provides strategies to reduce the risk of failure of legislative projects, including adopting a more structured and systematic approach to analysing the likely effects of the legislation; ensuring we identify the limits of our knowledge and the uncertainties of our predictions; and framing laws in a way that enables us to adjust the way they operate as new information becomes available or circumstances change. Key themes include the importance of the institutions that administer the legislation, of default outcomes, and of the 'stickiness' of those defaults. The book concludes with helpful checklists of questions to ask and issues to consider, which will be of benefit to anyone involved in designing legislation.