The United States Supreme Court was created in 1787 by the drafters of the Constitution almost as an afterthought, and it did very little in its early years. It soon turned out, however, that the Founders had wrought far, far greater than they knew. They had created a tribunal of Philosopher Kings. Surprisingly non-rigorous processes selected The Justices who inhabit these pages, and many have been barely suitable, or outright unsuitable for the job. For every creative, elemental force like Justice John Marshall there were many who did not belong on the Court, such as Justice Charles Whitaker who wept because he couldn't make up his mind about the cases he was called upon to decide. Most were, of course, competent enough to do their jobs more or less acceptably. And that has been the hallmark of our government institutions-do things well enough for respectable survival, perform brilliantly if possible when history demands, and correct your disasters with the benefit of hindsight when God gives you the opportunity.

If the stories in this book seem familiar, there is a reason. The Supreme Court is an intensely human institution, and we all know what that is about.

This book is a compilation of legal and law-related statements that have defined and characterized our legal system over the centuries. But the reader will quickly recognize that it is not a textbook in disguise. The quotations, and the actions and ideas they present and represent were selected by purely personal criteria: the author found them fascinating, important, or revealing. They range from history-changing statements (Henry II's "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest ") to purely mythological encounters (Lincoln's cross-examination of "Sovine" about the phase the moon was in when a murder took place) to royal chit-chat (a devastating remark a high-born lady made to the fugitive King James II which can be viewed as the final word on English royal tyranny) to an apology made in a casual encounter on an American street that symbolized the healing of a terrible cultural wound. The hope is to convey, not a rigid history, but a random flavor of how the law has been shaped by calculated, casual, powerful, and even silly words, uttered for the ages or merely for the moment.

This disparate verbal collection tells us that our legal system is not like a carefully sculptured statue, but like a human being, is composed of all that it has known and done and said.

This is a biography of the early years of a somewhat successful legal career. It lacks the aphrodisiac of star quality, but what it provides is closer to common ground, and in that sense more valuable. Within these pages I have portrayed my sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating coming of age as a trial lawyer in post mid-century Nashville, Tennessee.

There is plenty of drama, much ridiculousness, and most of all an abiding sense of humanity, created by the collision of an earnest, young lawyer on the lower rungs of the American System of Justice with the system itself. The comedy, tragedy, carelessness, and sometimes good lawyering chronicled here have been experienced from time immemorial by fledgling lawyers, whose energy and idealism temporarily overcomes the cynicism that so often dominates our legal system.

If these stories seem to validate our system of justice, this old lawyer's judgment of that system will have been accurately conveyed. The stories tend to demonstrate that a system which ultimately rests upon the judgment of twelve people, while far from perfect, is superior to anything else the world has managed to devise for resolving society's disputes. Even an awkward young lawyer, battered as he sometimes was by the system, perceived that basic truth and carried it with him for the rest of his professional life.

The United States Supreme Court was created in 1787 by the drafters of the Constitution almost as an afterthought, and it did very little in its early years. It soon turned out, however, that the Founders had wrought far, far greater than they knew. They had created a tribunal of Philosopher Kings. Surprisingly non-rigorous processes selected The Justices who inhabit these pages, and many have been barely suitable, or outright unsuitable for the job. For every creative, elemental force like Justice John Marshall there were many who did not belong on the Court, such as Justice Charles Whitaker who wept because he couldn't make up his mind about the cases he was called upon to decide. Most were, of course, competent enough to do their jobs more or less acceptably. And that has been the hallmark of our government institutions-do things well enough for respectable survival, perform brilliantly if possible when history demands, and correct your disasters with the benefit of hindsight when God gives you the opportunity.

If the stories in this book seem familiar, there is a reason. The Supreme Court is an intensely human institution, and we all know what that is about.