This book is a must-buy for anyone interested in the study of social change and the legal systems. The authors provide important social commentary and exciting legal history in a scholarly but eminently readable style. The accounts of the lives from Belva Lockwood's in the mid-late Nineteenth century through Ralph Nader's in the mid-late Twentieth provide not only intriguing biography, but also an excellent tour of the American history of the past 150 years and some of the key social and legal issues confronted. The portraits of, for example, Mrs. Lockwood's battles for the legal rights of women and Samuel Leibowitz's for the black "Scottsboro Nine," are moving and the more compelling because they are juxtaposed alongside the equally dramatic stories of Clarence Darrow, Louis Brandeis, Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ralph Nader, Charles Houston, William Kunstler, and Morris Dees .

PEOPLE'S LAWYERS should be in every public library, high school library, and college library in the country. It should also be in the collections of people deeply interested in the law, the constitution, and in understanding historical social change in America. I also wish that today's crop of politicians and lawyers would read it!

Peoples' Lawyers presents comprehensive, scholarly, yet highly
engaging accounts of the lives of lawyers who made a *positive*
difference in the U.S. Some of them are well known and still active such as Ralph Nader, Morris Dees and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Others are less well known such as Belva Lockwood, Samuel Leibowitz and Charles Hamilton Houston. ALL have made major contributions to American society by helping to close the gap between the American "ideal" of "freedom and justice for all"
and the realities of discrimination, class advantage and political and corporate corruption.

The authors present detailed accounts of the lawyers including the variety of early childhood experiences which contributed to their passion for justice. The depiction of of their personal lives coupled with the obstacles the lawyers had to overcome in their pursuit of justice for all make for compelling and inspiratinal reading.

Another plus of the book is the detailed descriptions of the major court cases the lawyers were involved with.These are wisely
placed in a separate section after the biography of the
respective lawyers.

The book is written by two scholars and thus is very well documented. The writing is lucid and compelling. Thus, both scholars AND the intelligent general public would find the book
of interest. Detailed bibliographies enable those interested to
pursue their study of the lawyers.

During a time when the news is filled with accounts of corporate,
political and journalistic corruption and injustices, Peoples'Lawyers, reminds us that there were and still are some whose patience, persistence and perseverance for the cause of justice can lead to victory and increased justice.

People's Lawyers. Crusaders for Justice in American History. By Diana Klebanow and Franklin L. Jonas. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, New York and London, 2003. Reviewed by John C. Greene.

People's Lawyers is a fascinating account of ten individuals, two of them women, who devoted their legal careers to defending the rights of persons most of whom were treated harshly by the authorities because of their race, gender, or radical views. Some of these lawyers - Clarence Darrow, Louis Brandeis, Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Ralph Nader - are well known figures in American history. Others - Belva Lockwood, Samuel Leibowitz, Charles Houston, William Kunstler, and Morris Dees - are less well known, but all felt the call to see that the poor, the defenseless, the radical, the unpopular were given the protections guaranteed by the Constitution and that their persecutors were brought to justice.
For each of these champions of equal justice under law the authors provide a life chronology, a biography, a summary of the chief cases in which each was involved, and an extensive bibliography of the sources consulted by the authors. The biographies, full of drama and, in some cases, risk to life and limb by lawyers confronting racial prejudice head-on, are told in fluent prose presenting the historical facts fairly and with full command of the legal issues involved. The authors obviously admire the courage and skill of their "people's lawyers", but they describe them warts and all as fallible human beings.
The summaries of leading cases following each biography presents both the majority ruling of the court and the dissenting opinions if any, and then indicate the significance of the case in the long view of American constitutional history. Readers having some familiarity with that history will find these cases especially interesting, but no such previous knowledge is required to appreciate the drama and importance of the lives and work of these ten "people's lawyers".

John C. Greene is Professor of History Emeritus, University of Connecticut. He resides at 651 Sinex Ave., Pacific Grove, CA 93950