Book Reviews
This Month's Featured Selections
The Constitution & Religion: Leading
Supreme Court Cases on Church and State
Edited by Robert S. Alley
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999.)
545 pgs. $21.21.
Reviewed by Jon G. Furlow
One of the most vexing areas of constitutional law is the principled
application of the First Amendment religion clauses. The cases
demonstrate a fundamental tension between no state support to religion,
however indirect, and the competing idea that religious practices must
be accommodated by the state to prevent discrimination against religion
generally. The former approach is embodied by Thomas Jefferson's "wall
of separation," the latter has become known as the "benevolent
neutrality" of the state toward religion. The law is murky, but The
Constitution & Religion does an admirable job of providing some
clarity to the issues and sorting out the case law.
The principal contribution of this book is its meaty introduction
that provides an outstanding historical overview of the passage of the
religion clauses. The discussion offers a window to the history that led
to the religion clauses. Endnotes contain additional historical source
material. Most important, the book reprints the two fundamental
historical documents that are referred to repeatedly when examining
religion cases - James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance and
Thomas Jefferson's Act Establishing Religious Freedom. Another
useful feature is a chart showing how the U.S. Supreme Court justices
over history have voted on cases involving the religion clauses.
With this historical foundation in place, the book provides a
compendium of key Supreme Court cases. The cases are not full text, but
are edited. Each case is preceded by a short introductory summary of the
key issue and ruling. The cases are organized into three general
subjects: establishment clause cases, free exercise cases, and cases
addressing principles governing judicial resolution of internal church
disputes.
The establishment clause cases principally focus on aid to parochial
schools and public school accommodation of religious practices. Other
issues are also touched upon, such as the government display of
religious symbols, access of religious groups to student fees, the use
of public forums, and tax exemptions for religious organizations.
The free exercise cases address constitutional limitations of state
actions that infringe on religious practices. A variety of issues are
addressed including Sunday closing laws, mandatory pledge of allegiance,
denial of state benefits, compulsory school attendance laws, and
restrictions on religious practices that are outside the religious
mainstream.
The section addressing the judicial resolution of internal church
disputes is an interesting addition to the more traditional religion
clause issues. This section, however, contains an oversight: The
principal modern Supreme Court decision on the subject, Jones v.
Wolf, 443 U.S. 595 (1979), is not included.
The Constitution & Religion is no substitute for reading
and analyzing the cases in entirety, but it is a useful desk guide. The
historical material is useful and alone provides value to the book. The
case law also will remain valuable, but more as historical material.
Because this is a very active area of Supreme Court decisions with
shifting coalitions of justices, a thorough analysis of a dispute
concerning the religion clauses still requires independent research and
careful updating of the cases.
Examining the Work of State Courts, 1997: A
National Perspective from the Court Statistics Project
and
State Court Caseload Statistics, 1997
(Williamsburg, VA: National Center for State Courts,
1997.)
105 pgs. and 223 pgs., respectively.
Reviewed by John Keckhaver
The Court Statistics Project (CSP) is a joint project of the
Conference of State Court Administrators, the State Justice Institute,
the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Center for State
Courts. CSP staff collects and analyzes data relating to the work of our
nation's state courts. Examining State Courts and its
supplement, State Court Caseload Statistics, include data
compiled from more than 16,000 state trial courts in all 50 states. The
CSP's mission is to provide a "broad-based framework for examining court
workload and bringing national trends to light." The high quality of
these publications indicate that the CSP has succeeded.
The information contained in these works is not meant to aid trial
attorneys in their daily decision-making in state courts. This project
and the resulting texts are meant for legislators, government
executives, judges, and anyone else interested in the problem of high
state court caseloads and its ramifications for the effective
administration of justice.
In Examining the Work of State Courts, the editors have
compiled an extensive review of state judicial workloads in the
following categories: civil, tort and contract, domestic relations,
juvenile, criminal, felony, and appellate caseloads. The editors include
commentary on the statistics provided including the trends in each area
and also offer some conclusions at the end of each section.
State Court Caseload Statistics contains tables depicting
each state's court structure, their jurisdiction and reporting
practices, and their state court caseloads. A detailed explanation of
the CSP's methodology and the sources of the data compiled from each
state are included.
The CSP has provided much more than raw data in these works. The
commentary accompanying the statistics is clear and insightful. The
editors' conclusions based on trends they have detected in court
caseloads along with their analysis of state court structures should
prove extremely useful to all those interested in how our state or other
states administer their court systems.
The CSP offers to provide clarification of the information presented
in its publications and to give advice on its use. Information from and
on the CSP (including ordering information) is available online.
Absent Witness
By Nancy Kopp
(New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, 1999.)
370 pgs. $5.59.
Reviewed by Gila Shoshany
Absent Witness is Nancy Kopp's third lawyer mystery. The
author, a Wisconsin Supreme Court commissioner, had fun writing this.
Characters share names (and traits) with court staffers and several
prominent Wisconsin attorneys. This playfulness is carried out in the
main character's irreverent attitude.
Chicago attorney Carrie Nelson faces a mystery: Who impregnated her
clients' comatose daughter? Subplots are deftly interwoven as the plot
whizzes along to the answer. On the way, Carrie deflates egotistical
senior partners, hostile doctors, slumlords, and obstinate detectives.
Her developing private life also keeps her busy.
Little details ring true. When Carrie reports the sexual assault of
the comatose victim, she hopes hordes of squad cars will be dispatched
to find the bad guy. When this doesn't happen, the author neatly
captures the chagrin of a competent civil attorney practicing outside
her field. Similarly, even surprise resolution of the whodunit doesn't
end the novel - as in real practice, trial preparation remains after the
discovery period ends. Cleverly, the author tucks another plot surprise
into Carrie's discovery boxes.
There are minor annoyances. For instance, even minor characters'
appearances and manners are described in full, almost like a screenplay.
Readers may resent this approach when they realize these minor
characters are unimportant to the action. Similarly, the characters
routinely speak adverbially: softly, wryly, bitterly. Although initially
on an even keel, they may "explode" at a question. Invoking inner state
by outer response is standard technique, but too many such
characterizations make the characters oddly labile. Still, these cavils
do not outweigh the pleasures of the plot.
Lawyers looking for a fast-paced mystery will enjoy reading this one
as much as the author enjoyed writing it.
The Legal Assistant's Practical Guide to
Professional Responsibility
By Carole L. Mostow and Arthur Garwin
(Chicago, IL: ABA Center for Professional Responsibility, 1998.)
210 pgs. $34.95.
Reviewed by Natalia Walter
This handy manual on professional responsibility should be required
reading for every legal assistant and every attorney who relies on legal
support staff. In 11 succinct chapters, the ABA Center for Professional
Responsibility summarizes the field of legal ethics for nonattorneys.
Easy to read charts, citations to state cases, and 80 pages of
appendices supplement summaries of the most common ethical issues
encountered in law offices. Attorneys will find it a useful tool to
train support staff in the ethics governing the legal profession.
While reminding attorneys of their responsibility for the ethical
conduct of all law office staff, the authors also emphasize support
staff's obligations in upholding legal ethics. Noting that the legal
assistant/paralegal profession remains largely unregulated, the ABA
urges the formulation of codes of ethics for legal assistants and the
establishment of core competencies. The authors advise paralegals to
monitor law office conduct and seek advice in ethically dubious
situations.
Particularly useful are the discussions of unauthorized practice of
law and confidentiality. What, for example, constitutes "legal advice"?
To what extent are paralegals bound by the rules of confidentiality that
govern attorneys? The boundaries between legal support staff and the
attorney are examined in each chapter.
As the cost of legal services increases, offices are relying more
heavily on support staff to provide a range of client services. This
book will greatly assist in helping an attorney to determine efficient
and ethical use of nonattorneys in her practice.
The Boiler Room & Other Telephone Sales
Scams
By Robert J. Stevenson
(Champaign, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1998.)
226 pgs. $22.46.
Reviewed by Gary Grass
Here is an uncommon work of independent scholarship. The Boiler
Room & Other Telephone Sales Scams has won academic praise for
its rare investigation of disreputable phone sales shops. Erstwhile
professor Robert Stevenson spent nine years covertly observing the
operations of more than 20 telephone rooms, gathering perspectives from
dozens of managers and house "pros" and hundreds of lower-level
informants. His intense research has opened vistas into a fascinating
netherworld of telephone pitchmen.
Stevenson lets these professional talkers paint verbal pictures for
us in their rich-hued jargon. We hear their full pitches, complete with
inflections, their insights and metaphors, and their contempt for the
"mooches" who get their calls. Stevenson adds his own expert eye for the
ideology and economics of the boiler room, classifies a menagerie of
boiler room types, and analyzes their pecking order. The inner workings
detailed include secrets unknown even to insiders, who are routinely
victimized by the boiler rooms' self-destructive rogue capitalism and
poisonous internal "chemistry."
Stevenson assesses social costs from the hawking of worthless or
substandard wares or nonexistent services. How many accidents are caused
by product houses' defective auto parts, or rubbing alcohol (diluted in
someone's bathtub) sold to an airline purchasing department as de-icer?
Stevenson considers a variety of tactics boiler rooms use to avid legal
snares, but without venturing far into matters of law.
For all its merits, a nonsociologist expecting a potboiler may find
the detail agonizingly thorough and certain analyses perplexing. The
Boiler Room has an index, notes, and references, but could use a
glossary. The trade vernacular ("cooling out the mark") and sociological
lingo ("interaction membrane") are erratically explained. A few typos
appear, and the organization is not always transparent. Some conclusions
seem tendentious.
But when it's all boiled down, the unique and compelling material
highly recommend this book.
Animal Law & Dog Behavior
By David Favre & Peter L. Borchelt
(Tucson, AZ: Lawyers & Judges Publishing Co., 1999).
388 pgs. $89.50.
Reviewed by Patricia Sommer
Animal Law and Dog Behavior is exactly what one would expect
from its title. The first half of the book is an overview of the body of
law surrounding animals, from their ownership and regulation to cruelty
laws and veterinary malpractice. The second half is a group of articles
addressing canine aggression. The book is mildly interesting, but poorly
edited.
The book's first half is comprehensive and well-researched. The
historical discussions were interesting, even though some of the issues
presented were arcane. One problem with this section is that is
repetitive - the same cases are sometimes discussed in multiple sections
without distinct analysis justifying the rehash.
The second section seems thrown together in order to justify
publishing the book. Several articles written for other publications are
included. These deal with dog behavior and aggression. Perhaps one more
sympathetic to the industry of animal psychology might review this
portion more favorably. That being said, this section might prove useful
to anyone whose practice includes a lot of dog-bite cases: It contains
checklists of possible causes of action and other aspects of trying such
a case.
One section struck a chord in light of our supreme court's 1999
decision in State v. Bodoh.
Several states have laws imposing criminal liability on persons whose
dangerous dogs injure others, much like the law envisioned by Judge
Harry G. Snyder in his dissent when Bodoh was before the court
of appeals. (See State v.
Bodoh, 220 Wis. 2d 102, 116, 119-20, 582 N.W.2d 440, 446-48
(Ct. App. 1998).)
Overall, the book is no page-turner, and it is annoyingly riddled
with typographical errors and grammatical mistakes.
Wisconsin
Lawyer
