Since 1958, twenty-five men and two women have forced the Supreme Court to consider whether the Constitution's promises of equal protection apply to gay Americans. Here Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price reveal how the nation's highest court has reacted to these cases--from the surprising 1958 victory of a tiny homosexual magazine to the 2000 defeat of a gay Eagle Scout. A triumph of investigative reporting, Courting Justice gives us an inspiring new perspective on the struggle for civil rights in America.

New York Yankees v. Major League Baseball; General Westmoreland v. CBS; FDIC v. Michael Milken; United States v. Microsoft; Bush v. Gore. In each of these landmark cases, one man, David Boies, has held center stage. Dubbed by the New York Times "the lawyer everyone wants," Boies has indeed been courted by government and major corporations alike, and by a host of the famous and powerful. His clients have included Calvin Klein; Don Imus; George Steinbrenner; and Garry Shandling, as well as companies such as DuPont; Altria; Lloyd's of London; and American Express. He has won record-breaking damages for consumers in cases against Sotheby's and Christie's and from major pharmaceutical companies worldwide, for price-fixing. His combination of legal know-how, meticulous preparation, and high-risk tactics at trial has earned him the sobriquet "the Michael Jordan of the courtroom." Written in the straightforward, sympathetic style that characterizes his courtroom presence, Courting Justice examines the varied clientele, behind-the-scenes dramas, and eleventh-hour strategies that have catapulted Boies to the top of the legal profession. His memoir ranges from his now-famous deposition of Bill Gates to the media-saturated battles of defending Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 Florida recount frenzy. when for days on end it was this one laconic nonpolitician who was asked to explain to the American people how their president was being decided. Through gripping accounts of some of his most notable cases, Boies brings to life not only his high-profile battles in and out of court but the details of his own life, from an unassuming boyhood in small-town Illinois and adolescence on the streets of Compton, to his brief career as a cardsharp (which helped hone his photographic memory), his lifelong fight with dyslexia and the lessons he learned in law schoolsone of which he was asked to leave. Inspiring, revealing, and compulsively readable, Courting Justice is an insider's look at the American legal system, highlighting both its strengths and its weaknesses, the ways it can be abused and the ways in which, at its best, it defends our liberties.

Refusing to eradicate the death penalty, the U.S. has attempted to reform and rationalize capital punishment through federal constitutional law. While execution chambers remain active in several states, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker argue that the fate of the American death penalty is likely to be sealed by this failed judicial experiment.

This book is a first-of-its-kind, five-country empirical study of the causes and consequences of social and economic rights litigation. Detailed studies of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa present systematic and nuanced accounts of court activity on social and economic rights in each country. The book develops new methodologies for analyzing the sources of and variation in social and economic rights litigation, explains why actors are now turning to the courts to enforce social and economic rights, measures the aggregate impact of litigation in each country, and assesses the relevance of the empirical findings for legal theory. This book argues that courts can advance social and economic rights under the right conditions precisely because they are never fully independent of political pressures.

The "New York Times"-bestselling author of "Sensual Confessions" is back witha brand-new novel of the Madaris family. Original.

COURTING JUSTICE The second book in the Montana Courthouse Tales Series An all-new collection of courtroom tales from an all-new set of Montana courthouses. True stories of murder and corruption, libel and sedition, justice and injustice - narrated by a cast of unforgettable historical, ghostly, and inanimate characters. • Missoula • Butte • Plentywood • Dillon • Thompson Falls • Stanford • Chinook • Broadus • Deer Lodge • Miles City • Boulder • Fort Benton • Round Up • Jordan

"Anything by R.L. Sommer, or his alter-ego, Ron Goldfarb, is a MUST read!" –Kitty Kelley, author of Oprah: A Biography Jake Lehman and his wife, Sydney, have left Washington D.C. for a fresh start in San Francisco. Their legal careers are on the rise, but so are tensions between them as they continually find themselves on opposing sides of cases concerning judicial ethics and gender equality. Their conflicting views―coupled with growing career obligations, social pressures, and constant travel―come to a head when both Jake and Sydney are recommended for a Supreme Court seat. With rising pressure threatening to divide the Lehmans, an innocent encounter is misconstrued by prying eyes and puts their relationship and Jake's career in jeopardy. Can Jake and Sydney's relationship withstand the intricacies of these cases and the complications of their careers?