Review of Law in America: A Short History, by Lawrence M. Friedman

[Excerpt] Lawrence M. Friedman’s Law in America: A Short History is a fascinating survey of the history of the American legal system. The book is written for both the legal professional and those interested in American legal history. Professor Friedman best summed up the book’s tenor by saying “we cannot understand American law without understanding American legal culture.” He then proceeds to explain the legal culture during three periods in our nation’s history and how the legal system was shaped by those times

Fact, Fiction, Film: Rex Beach and the Spoilers

Alexander McKenzie and Rex Beach both traveled to Nome, Alaska, in the summer of 1900 to get rich. McKenzie attempted to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the region\u27s gold mines in one of the most outlandish schemes in the history of the American legal system. His plan failed and McKenzie xvas found guilty of contempt and sentenced to one year in jail. The incident began a twenty year slide in political power until his death in 1922. Rex Beach intended to discover gold, but like McKenzie, he also failed in his attempt. But he found a gold mine of another sort. A mine of stories, anecdotes and colorful characters, plus the details of the McKenzie conspiracy provided the basis for a series of muckraking articles that he published in 1905. This series led to his most popular novel, The Spoilers, published in December, 1905, and a stage production of the same name which appeared briefly in Chicago and New York in 1906 before going on the road. In 1914 the first movie version was released, followed by different versions in 1923, 1930, 1942 and 1955. McKenzie\u27s failure get rich in 1900 thus led to the spectacularly successful career of Rex Beach, who defined the twentieth century popular author by writing a popular story and then exploiting every medium possible to profit from his effort

The Role of Ideas in Legal History

A review of Patterns of American Legal Thought by G. Edward Whit

Book Review: Cardozo. by Andrew L. Kaufman

Book review: Cardozo. By Andrew L. Kaufman. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. 1998. Pp. 731. Reviewed by: Lynn D. Wardl

Book Review: Cardozo. by Andrew L. Kaufman

Book review: Cardozo. By Andrew L. Kaufman. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. 1998. Pp. 731. Reviewed by: Lynn D. Wardl

Extra-Legal Factors in the American Legal System

The laws of the United States have been written over time with the intention of providing a framework for fair, legitimate, and uniform legal decisions to be made. Laws attempt to provide national tranquility by providing channels of punishment for those who disobey them. At the same time laws in the United States attempt to avoid any conflict with differing cultural values present in our nation. The laws of the United States are intended to function without regard to the race, sex, or religion of the defendant, complainant, or attorneys involved. Laws themselves cannot help but embody the cultural values of their authors, yet at the same time they are expected to function in a manner that ignores individual cultural attributes. Laws are expected to provide a frame of reference for legal decisions on the basis of rules and values accepted by the culture as a whole. The role of the individual in the American legal system is to obey the laws as they are written or face the penalties proscribed for disobeying them

The Political Economy of the Pacific Northwest: A Surplus Approach

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on September 4, 2015Dissertation advisor: James I. SturgeonVitaIncludes bibliographic references (pages 122-131)Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Economics and Social Sciences Consortium. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2015The dissertation is comprised of three independent essays. Each essay examines the process of qualitative change in the provisioning process from a different vantage, while remaining fixed in relation to the Columbia River. Among the three essays the period 1866 to 1945 is covered. The first essay examines development of the region's railroad system, and the aspirations on the part of its financiers to realize speculative gains. The region is situated in the context of the post Civil War imperial stance of the state, and the rise of global finance. It is argued that while other colonial processes had operated in the region since the arrival of the fur trappers, construction of railroads embodied a watershed in the commitment for absentee owners to engage in transformational development. The second essay traces the emergence of the electric utility globally, and in reference to the Pacific Northwest. It is argued that the electric utility emerges directly from the railroad - finance nexus. Key social relationships are explored that explain the emergence of the electric utility as a going concern, with particular emphasis placed upon Henry Villard. Villard's financial connections were instrumental in establishing the markets in which Edison's patents would become successful in general. Villard's relationship with Edison, both social and pecuniary in nature, would shape the subsequent process of electrification for the region. The third essay argues that transformation of the Columbia River basin into a hydrological machine emerges as a response to the abuses of the electric utilities. Development of the basin for power, navigation, and irrigation were viewed as a means by which the inhabitants of the region might break the colonial yoke under which the utilities absentee owners had placed them. Private utilities had squandered the wealth embodied in the social technology, failing to provision inhabitants of the region with electricity uniformly at a fair rate. Utilities at the base of a holding company pyramid were used to extract surplus incomes from ratepayers, in part, by inflating their rate bases. Moreover, private utilities wielded political power and worked to undermine efforts to institute municipal or public power projects. Such tension was felt regionally and nationally, galvanzing a countervailing force capable of ushering in large-scale, public, hydroelectric projects. Notwithstanding the dreams of New Deal planners, the Organic Machine would be placed into the narrower service of powering the WWII aluminum plant.Introduction -- Of railroads and finance -- The emergence of the electric utility -- This dam machine kills fascists -- Conclusio

Blueprint for Legal Practice: Establishing Cicero’s Ideal Style

Marcus Tullius Cicero represents the greatest historical expression of the ideal, best orator and lawyer. Cicero is praised for his success in the Roman trial court and skills of legal practice in that arena. Due to the disparity between the Roman world and modern America in the late-20th/21st century and the lack of a comprehensive guideline, American lawyers do not directly emulate the style of Cicero, with the goal of achieving the status of the ideal lawyer. Nevertheless, Cicero has a certain, specific style of legal practice which can be applied to the modern American trial court setting. Through the analyses of Cicero’s De Oratore, a stylistic blueprint containing the eleven (11) attributes of the ideal lawyer are established with the purpose of realistic application for modern lawyers seeking to embody Cicero’s ideal. The blueprint is applied to four (4) cases from Cicero’s own legal experience to support the argument for Cicero’s criteria. It is then applied to the modern American courtroom, and provides the means by which a generalized definition of the American lawyer would embody these ideal attributes