Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges
by Antonin Scalia
from Thomson West
In their professional lives courtroom lawyers must do these two things well: speak persuasively and write persuasively. In this noteworthy book, two of the most noted legal writers of our day Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner systematically present every important idea about judicial persuasion in a fresh, entertaining way. Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges is a guide for novice and experienced litigators alike. It covers the essentials of sound legal reasoning, including how to develop the syllogism that underlies any argument. From there the authors explain the art of brief-writing, especially what to include and what to omit, so that you can induce the judge to focus closely on your arguments. Finally, they show what it takes to succeed in oral argument. The opinions of Justice Scalia are legendary for their sharp insights, biting wit, and memorable phrasing. The writings of Bryan A. Garner, editor in chief of Black s Law Dictionary®, are respected inside and outside legal circles for their practical guidance on the art of writing and advocacy. Together the Scalia-Garner team has produced a fresh, innovative approach to a timeless topic.
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
by Jeffrey Toobin
from Doubleday
Bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin takes you into the chambers of the most important—and secret—legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, and reveals the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land.
Just in time for the 2008 presidential election—where the future of the Court will be at stake—Toobin reveals an institution at a moment of transition, when decades of conservative disgust with the Court have finally produced a conservative majority, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, presidential power, and church-state relations.
Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court through personalities—from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore—and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.
The Nine is the book bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin was born to write. A CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer, no one is more superbly qualified to profile the nine justices.
Getting To Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams
by Richard Michael Fischl
from Carolina Academic Press
Professors Fischl and Paul explain law school exams in ways no one has before, all with an eye toward improving the reader's performance. The book begins by describing the difference between educational cultures that praise students for "right answers," and the law school culture that rewards nuanced analysis of ambiguous situations in which more than one approach may be correct. Enormous care is devoted to explaining precisely how and why legal analysis frequently produces such perplexing situations.
But the authors don't stop with mere description. Instead, Getting to Maybe teaches how to excel on law school exams by showing the reader how legal analysis can be brought to bear on examination problems. The book contains hints on studying and preparation that go well beyond conventional advice. The authors also illustrate how to argue both sides of a legal issue without appearing wishy-washy or indecisive. Above all, the book explains why exam questions may generate feelings of uncertainty or doubt about correct legal outcomes and how the student can turn these feelings to his or her advantage.
In sum, although the authors believe that no exam guide can substitute for a firm grasp of substantive material, readers who devote the necessary time to learning the law will find this book an invaluable guide to translating learning into better exam performance.
Quicken Willmaker Plus 2008 Edition: Estate Planning Essentials (Book with CD-ROM)
by Editors of Nolo
from NOLO
America's No. 1 estate planning book with interactive CD-ROM software helps you create a will, living trust, living will -- and much more .
Help protect your family and your assets, and save on legal fees! Quicken WillMaker Plus Estate Planning Essential 2008 Edition provides the legal forms you need. So comprehensive, the CD-ROM assembles your forms from among 40,000 document possibilities -- but so easy to use, you'll have them finished in minutes.
Quicken WillMaker Plus Estate Planning Essential 2008 Edition includes a full "health care power of attorney." Dictate the health care you wish to receive if you can't speak for yourself, and be assured that your loved ones won't have to second-guess themselves!
Create your own:
Living Will
Health Care Power of Attorney
The CD-ROM also provides forms you can use every day, such as authorizations and agreements, child and elder care forms, promissory notes and documents to help you repair your credit.
For each document, Quicken WillMaker Plus Estate Planning Essentials 2008 Edition takes you through a step-by-step interview. Your documents will automatically reflect the laws of your state. If you have any questions, simply check out the comprehensive onscreen legal manual. Expert tech support is also available.
Need to know more? Here are in-depth details about what you can do with Quicken WillMaker Plus Estate Planning Essentials 2008 Edition:
Your Will
Provide for family, friends and charities. Name a personal guardian to care for young children. Specify the executor (or "personal representative") of your estate. Select a trusted person to manage property left to young people. Revise and update your will whenever you like.
Your Living Trust
Make a basic trust, whether you're married or single. If married, you can create a AB trust (or bypass trust) and spare your heirs from potentially heavy estate taxes. Create subtrusts for minor children and young adults. Name custodians for property left to children. Change or revoke your trust at any time.
Your Health Care Directive lets people who care for you make important decisions about your life and health when you can't. Create a:
Health Care Power of Attorney Permit a loved one to make important medical decisions for you if you are unable to do so yourself.
Living Will
Specify whether you want your life prolonged through artificial means. Appoint someone to make sure your wishes are carried out.
Your Financial Power of Attorney
Name someone to make your financial decisions, in case you are medically incapacitated. Don't worry, you can grant as much authority as you wish.
Your Final Arrangements
Plan a funeral or other ceremony. Clarify whether you want a cremation or burial. Select someone to oversee your final arrangements -- and more!
Documents for Your Executor
Make sure your executor ("personal representative" in some states) has all the forms and instructions he or she needs to do the job: Checklists, letters, notices, claim forms -- and more.
Personal Finance Documents
Over a dozen forms that let you handle financial situations you might face on any given day, such as disputing a credit card charge, lending or borrowing money to friends or family, creating bills of sale -- and more!
Home & Family Documents
Whether you need to authorize someone to travel with your child to another country, want to lend your car to a friend, or create an agreement with a trusted person to take care of your elderly parent, Quicken WillMaker Plus can handle all these family situations -- and many more!
Estate planning documents not valid in Louisiana.
Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values
by Philippe Sands
from Palgrave Macmillan
On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition. From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, Phillipe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law.
On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition. From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, Phillipe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law.
Black's Law Dictionary, Eighth Edition (Black's Law Dictionary (Standard Edition))
from Thomson West
Edited by Bryan A. Garner, the world's leading legal lexicographer, Black's Law Dictionary, 8th Edition is now better than ever! The new 8th Edition has more than 43,000 definitions, plus almost 3,000 quotations. Alternative spellings or equivalent terms and expressions are provided for more than 5,300 terms and senses, serving a thesaurus-like function. The extensive appendix on legal abbreviations is a major addition. It's the first time such a comprehensive guide has been included in a modern law dictionary, and is an invaluable aid to the legal researcher.
-17,000 more definitions than the 7th Edition
-Newly enhanced with West Key Numbers for research reference
-Includes changes made since the creation of the department of Homeland Security
-Almost 3,000 quotations from authorities drawn from sources over at least five centuries
-More than 1,000 law-related abbreviations and acronyms are defined
-Extensive appendix on legal abbreviations
-Faculty recommended
Property
by James E. Krier
from Aspen Publishers, Inc.
The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It
by Jonathan Zittrain
from Yale University Press
This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.
IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk.
The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”
The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
by Michael Heller
from Basic Books
Every so often an idea comes along that transforms our understanding of how the world works. Michael Heller has discovered a market dynamic that no one knew existed. Usually, private ownership creates wealth, but too much ownership has the opposite effect—it creates gridlock. When too many people own pieces of one thing, whether a physical or intellectual resource, cooperation breaks down, wealth disappears, and everybody loses. Heller’s paradox is at the center of The Gridlock Economy. Today’s leading edge of innovation—in high tech, biomedicine, music, film, real estate—requires the assembly of separately owned resources. But gridlock is blocking economic growth all along the wealth creation frontier.
A thousand scholars have applied and verified Heller’s paradox. Now he takes readers on a lively tour of gridlock battlegrounds. Heller zips from medieval robber barons to modern-day broadcast spectrum squatters; from Mississippi courts selling African-American family farms to troubling New York City land confiscations; and from Chesapeake Bay oyster pirates to today’s gene patent and music mash-up outlaws. Each tale offers insights into how to spot gridlock in operation and how we can overcome it.
The Gridlock Economy is a startling, accessible biography of an idea. Nothing is inevitable about gridlock. It results from choices we make about how to control the resources we value most. We can unlock the grid; this book shows us where to start.
The Law Of Torts: Examples And Explanations (Examples & Explanations)
by Joseph W. Glannon
from Aspen Publishers
A favorite among law students and professors alike, the Examples & Explanations series is ideal for studying, reviewing and testing your understanding through application of hypothetical examples. Authored by leading professors with extensive classroom experience, Examples & Explanations titles offer hypothetical questions in the subject area, complemented by detailed explanations that allow you to test your knowledge of the topic, and compare your own analysis.
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