With the extraordinary investigative acumen and sensitive narrative skills that informed her best-selling Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last, Barbara Goldsmith now gives us the most sensational case of a contested will in American history—weaving a hypnotic tale of vast wealth and moral corruption. When J. Seward Johnson, the pharmaceutical heir, died in 1983 at the age of eighty-seven, his six children (each of whom was already in possession of an immense fortune) were outraged to learn that he had willed his entire $500-million estate to their stepmother Basia—a woman forty-two years Seward’s junior, a Polish refugee who had once worked as a chambermaid in his household. They came to believe that Basia had used undue influence to “enchant” their father, prying his fortune away from him and turning him against his own children. They wanted “justice.” The legal battle that followed spawned a seventeen-week-long trial, the involvement of 210 lawyers (some of whose behavior was legally and ethically questionable), $24 million in legal fees, and public disclosures of the often scandalous details of the lives of many of the parties involved, including attempted suicide, drug addiction, and accusations of a murder plot. Going beyond the courtroom itself, Goldsmith delves into the family’s past and present, demonstrating that, from the start, the poisonous effects of overwhelming wealth were a tacit but powerfully felt subtext to the proceedings. From her insider’s position, she reveals the true Johnson legacy—one of profound emotional damage. In their own voices Seward’s children, his first wife, relatives, friends, employees, and Basia herself express their thoughts and feelings with a startling degree of frankness, revealing a past of incest, malignant neglect, and betrayal. Through this deepening of the story, Goldsmith has been able to elucidate the profoundly complex reasons why each of the Johnsons believed that what was most emphatically at stake was not financial remuneration but emotional reparation. Throughout the four-month trial, Goldsmith (who researched the case for over a year and examined thousands of pages of documentation) was in constant attendance, and she tells the dramatic story of what occurred in spellbinding detail. We see the contesting parties, their innumerable lawyers, and the trial’s remarkable judge, Marie Lambert (“part Portia, part Tugboat Annie”), playing out their roles in a courtroom packed with press and spectators, and rife with animosity, mistrust, and uncontrolled emotions (which erupted into a near-riot and death threats against the judge). Goldsmith illuminates how and why, as the trial progressed, it was transmuted almost entirely into a battle among lawyers, about lawyers, and for lawyers. She provides a masterful and devastating indictment of American law and lawyers, seen here as an out-of-control juggernaut fueled by a seemingly inexhaustible supply of money. Family drama, courtroom drama, explosive psychological drama, a trenchant and sometimes shocking portrayal of lawyers at work today—Johnson v. Johnson is a brilliant synthesis of the legal, the social, and the human aspects of a society in disarray.

When Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag as part of a political protest, he was convicted for flag desecration under Texas law. But the Supreme Court, by a contentious 5 to margin, overturned that conviction, claiming that Johnson's action constituted symbolic -- and thus protected -- speech. Heated debate continues to swirl around that controversial decision, both hailed as a victory for free speech advocates and reviled as an abomination that erodes the patriotic foundations of American democracy. Such passionate yet contradictory views are at the heart of this landmark case. Book jacket.

Johnson v. McIntosh and its impact offers a comprehensive historical and legal overview of Native land rights since the European discovery of the New World. Watson sets the case in rich historical context. After tracing Anglo-American views of Native land rights to their European roots, Watson explains how speculative ventures in Native lands affected not only Indian peoples themselves but the causes and outcomes of the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and ratification of the Articles of Confederation. He then focuses on the transactions at issue in Johnson between the Illinois and Piankeshaw Indians, who sold their homelands, and the future shareholders of the United Illinois and Wabash Land Companies.

Reproductive justice theory made real through re-imagining critical cases addressing pregnancy, parenting, and the law's treatment of marginalized women.

In this “deeply original” (Elif Batuman) and “violently funny” (Myriam Gurba) story, a young lawyer finally confronts her dark past so she can live in a more peaceful future. To the outside observer, Vivian is a success story—a dedicated lawyer who advocates for mentally ill patients at a New York City psychiatric hospital. Privately, Vivian contends with the memories and aftereffects of her bad childhood—compounded by the everyday stresses of being a Black Latinx woman in America. She lives in a constant state of hypervigilant awareness that makes even a simple subway ride into a heart-pounding drama. For years, Vivian has self-medicated with a mix of dating, dieting, dark humor and smoking weed with her BFF, Jane. But after a family reunion prompts Vivian to take a bold step, she finds herself alone in new and terrifying ways, without even Jane to confide in, and she starts to unravel. Will she find a way to repair what matters most to her? A debut from a stunning talent, Post-traumatic is a new kind of survivor narrative, featuring a complex heroine who is blazingly, indelibly alive. With razor-sharp prose and mordant wit, Chantal V. Johnson performs an extraordinary feat, delivering a psychologically astute story about the aftermath of trauma that somehow manages to brim with warmth, laughter, and hope.

An Introduction to Constitutional Law teaches the narrative of constitutional law as it has developed historically and provides the essential background to understand how this foundational body of law has come to be what it is today. This multimedia experience combines a book and video series to engage students more directly in the study of constitutional law. All students—even those unfamiliar with American history—will garner a firm understanding of how constitutional law has evolved. An eleven-hour online video library brings the Supreme Court’s most important decisions to life. Videos are enriched by photographs, maps, and audio from the Supreme Court. The book and videos are accessible for all levels: law school, college, high school, home school, and independent study. Students can read and watch these materials before class to prepare for lectures or study after class to fill in any gaps in their notes. And, come exam time, students can binge-watch the entire canon of constitutional law in about twelve hours.

Shamanic energy teacher Karen Johnson writes with both hope and compassion in a book described by bestselling author and noted shamanic teacher Alberto Villoldo as "The owner's manual for embracing grief with courage and transforming it into wisdom, to discover the ultimate and lasting gift of joy." Karen Johnson's fast-paced professional life came to an abrupt halt when she lost her twenty-seven-year-old son to a heroin overdose. Rather than grieve in a way that made people around her comfortable, she did the unexpected. She retired, sold her house and all her household goods, and went on a two-and-a-half-year journey that took her all over the world, finding a spiritual practice along the way. Karen didn't think she could ever find her way out of despair, but she found a process that worked-a sacred journey and map-that she wants to share with others so they can heal too. This book is structured around practices that are part of the Four Winds Medicine Wheel as developed by Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D. Karen blends her personal story and meaningful experiences with each direction of the Medicine Wheel, offering exercises related to each of the four practices. Writes Karen, "I want you to know something really important. You may be feeling stuck in your grief and wondering why you can't seem to get over it. I felt the same way until I realized we do not get over grief. It's not like catching the - u; we aren't sick. There is no cure, and we can't medicate it away. Grief is a state of being that carries energy that you can tap into to create a new life. Just as we use the energy of other newly acquired states of being like marriage or parenthood to transform our lives, we can likewise use the energy of grieving to transform."

Affirmative action continues to be one of the most hotly contested issues in America. Volatile and divisive, the debates over its legitimacy have inspired a number of "reverse discrimination" suits in the federal courts. Like the landmark 1978 Bakke decision, most of these have focused on preferential treatment given racial minorities. In Johnson v. Santa Clara, however, the central issue was gender, not race discrimination, and the Supreme Court's decision in that case marked a resounding victory for women in the work force. Johnson v. Santa Clara involved two people who in 1980 competed for a dispatcher position with the transportation department of Santa Clara County, California. Paul Johnson had more experience and slightly higher test scores, but Diane Joyce was given the job based on affirmative action. An irate Johnson sued the county and won, only to have the decision reversed in appellate court. That reversal was subsequently upheld in the Supreme Court's 1987 decision, reaffirming that it was legitimate for employers to consider gender in hiring. Preeminent legal historian Melvin Urofsky proves an exemplary guide through the complexities of this case as he takes us from the workplace through the various levels of our federal court system. Balancing the particulars of the case with an overview of constitutional law and judicial process, he creates a model legal history that is both appealing and enlightening for the non-scholar. Urofsky is especially good at highlighting the fundamental human drama of this case and shows how Johnson and Joyce were simply ordinary people, each with valid reasons for their actions, but both ultimately caught up in legal and social issues that reached well beyond their own lives. Affirmative Action on Trial pointedly addresses the issue of sex discrimination and the broader controversy over the place of affirmative action in American society. The latter continues to generate headlines, like those that followed the 1996 Supreme Court decision to let stand a lower-court ruling that race cannot be used as a determination for admission to academic programs. More recently, several states have even taken steps to end affirmative action altogether. While it's hard to tell how such actions will ultimately impact affirmative action, there's no question that the rulings in cases like Johnson v. Santa Clara will continue to guide and influence the debates both inside and outside the courtroom.