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.

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

Before constitutional regulation -- The Supreme Court steps in -- The invisibility of race in the constitutional revolution -- Between the Supreme Court and the states -- The failures of regulation -- An unsustainable system? -- Recurring patterns in constitutional regulation -- The future of the American death penalty -- Life after death

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.

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

Since 1947 a modernized New Jersey Supreme Court has played an important and controversial role in the state, nation, and world. Its decisions in cutting-edge cases have confronted society’s toughest issues, reflecting changing social attitudes, modern life’s complexities, and new technologies. Paul Tractenberg has selected ten of the court’s landmark decisions between 1960 and 2011 to illustrate its extensive involvement in major public issues, and to assess its impact. Each case chapter is authored by a distinguished academic or professional expert, several of whom were deeply involved in the cases’ litigation, enabling them to provide special insights. An overview chapter provides context for the court’s distinctive activity. Many of the cases are so widely known that they have become part of the national conversation about law and policy. In the Karen Ann Quinlan decision, the court determined the right of privacy extends to refusing life-sustaining treatment. The Baby M case reined in surrogate parenting and focused on the child’s best interests. In the Mount Laurel decision, the court sought to increase affordable housing for low- and moderate-income residents throughout the state. The Megan’s Law case upheld legal regulation of sex offender community notification. A series of decisions known as Abbott/Robinson required the state to fund poor urban school districts at least on par with suburban districts. Other less well known cases still have great public importance. Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors reshaped product liability and tort law to protect consumers injured by defective cars; State v. Hunt shielded privacy rights from unwarranted searches beyond federal standards; Lehmann v. Toys ‘R’ Us protected employees from sexual harassment and a hostile work environment; Right to Choose v. Byrne expanded state constitutional abortion rights beyond the federal constitution; and Marini v. Ireland protected low-income tenants against removal from their homes. For some observers, the New Jersey Supreme Court represents the worst of judicial activism; others laud it for being, in its words, “the designated last-resort guarantor of the Constitution's command.” For Tractenberg, the court’s activism means it tends to find for the less powerful over the more powerful and for the public good against private interests, an approach he applauds.

"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?

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.

Women and the LGBT community in Russia and Turkey face pervasive discrimination. Only a small percentage dare to challenge their mistreatment in court. Facing domestic police and judges who often refuse to recognize discrimination, a small minority of activists have exhausted their domestic appeals and then turned to their last hope: the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The ECtHR, located in Strasbourg, France, is widely regarded as the most effective international human rights court in existence. Russian citizens whose rights have been violated at home have brought tens of thousands of cases to the ECtHR over the past two decades. But only one of these cases resulted in a finding of gender discrimination by the ECtHR-and that case was brought by a man. By comparison, the Court has found gender discrimination more frequently in decisions on Turkish cases. Courting Gender Justice explores the obstacles that confront citizens, activists, and lawyers who try to bring gender discrimination cases to court. To shed light on the factors that make rare victories possible in discrimination cases, the book draws comparisons among forms of discrimination faced by women and LGBT people in Russia and Turkey. Based on interviews with human rights and feminist activists and lawyers in Russia and Turkey, this engaging book grounds the law in the personal experiences of individual people fighting to defend their rights.