Ed.
note:
Please
welcome
Renee
Knake
Jefferson
back
to
the
pages
of
Above
the
Law.
Subscribe
to
her
Substack,
Legal
Ethics
Roundup, here.
Welcome
to
what
captivates,
haunts,
inspires,
and
surprises
me
every
week
in
the
world
of
legal
ethics.
This
week
I’m
mixing
things
up
here
at
the
Roundup.
Summer
officially
begins
this
week
on June
20.
So,
it
is
time
for
your Second
Annual
LER
Summer
Reading
List.
You’ll
find
an
assortment
of
recently
published
books
related
to
legal
ethics
that
you
might
want
to
add
to
your
own
summer
reading
list,
along
with
a
few
non-law
recommendations
too.
Click
on
the
titles
below
to
purchase.
Doing
so
contributes
to
this
reader-supported
website,
because
the
Legal
Ethics
Roundup
earns
a
small
commission
at
no
cost
to
you.
(For
more
suggestions,
revisit
last
year’s
Summer
Reading
List LER
No.
44.)
If
a
legal
ethics
summer
reading
list
isn’t
for
you,
don’t
worry.
The
Roundup
in
its
regular
form
will
be
delivered
to
your
inbox
next
Monday.
Books
with
Legal
Ethics
Ideas
and
Themes
Vision:
A
Memoir
of
Blindness
and
Justice by Judge
David
S.
Tatel. From
the
publisher:
“David
Tatel
has
served
nearly
30
years
on
America’s
second
highest
court,
the
United
States
Court
of
Appeals
for
the
D.C.
Circuit,
where
many
of
our
most
crucial
cases
are
resolved—or
teed
up
for
the
Supreme
Court.
He
has
championed
equal
justice
for
his
entire
adult
life;
decided
landmark
environmental
and
voting
cases;
and
embodied
the
ideal
of
what
a
great
judge
should
be.
Yet
he
has
been
blind
for
the
past
50
of
his
80-plus
years.
Initially,
he
depended
upon
aides
to
read
texts
to
him,
and
more
recently,
a
suite
of
hi-tech
solutions
has
allowed
him
to
listen
to
reams
of
documents
at
high
speeds.
At
first,
he
tried
to
hide
his
deteriorating
vision,
and
for
years,
he
denied
that
it
had
any
impact
on
his
career.
Only
recently,
partly
thanks
to
his
first-ever
guide
dog,
Vixen,
has
he
come
to
fully
accept
his
blindness
and
the
role
it’s
played
in
his
personal
and
professional
lives.
His
story
of
fighting
for
justice
over
many
decades,
with
and
without
eyesight,
is
an
inspiration
to
us
all.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
The
Containment:
Detroit,
the
Supreme
Court,
and
the
Battle
for
Racial
Justice
in
the
North by Michelle
Adams. From
the
publisher:
“In
1974,
the
Supreme
Court
issued
a
momentous
decision:
In
the
case
of Milliken
v.
Bradley,
the
justices
brought
a
halt
to
school
desegregation
across
the
North,
and
to
the
civil
rights
movement’s
struggle
for
a
truly
equal
education
for
all.
How
did
this
come
about,
and
why?
In The
Containment,
the
esteemed
legal
scholar
Michelle
Adams
tells
the
epic
story
of
the
struggle
to
integrate
Detroit
schools―and
what
happened
when
it
collided
with
Nixon-appointed
justices
committed
to
a
judicial
counterrevolution.
Adams
chronicles
the
devoted
activists
who
tried
to
uplift
Detroit’s
students
amid
the
upheavals
of
riots,
Black
power,
and
white
flight―and
how
their
efforts
led
to
federal
judge
Stephen
Roth’s
landmark
order
to
achieve
racial
balance
by
tearing
down
the
walls
separating
the
city
and
its
suburbs.
The
‘metropolitan
remedy’
could
have
remade
the
landscape
of
racial
justice.
Instead,
the
Supreme
Court
ruled
that
the
suburbs
could
not
be
a
part
of
the
effort
to
integrate―and
thus
upheld
the
inequalities
that
remain
in
place
today.
Adams
tells
this
story
via
compelling
portraits
of
a
city
under
stress
and
of
key
figures―including
Detroit’s
first
Black
mayor,
Coleman
Young,
and
Justices
Marshall,
Rehnquist,
and
Powell.
The
result
is
a
legal
and
historical
drama
that
exposes
the
roots
of
today’s
backlash
against
affirmative
action
and
other
efforts
to
fulfill
the
country’s
promise.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
‘No
More
Tears’
Exposes
a
Company,
and
Industry,
Imperiling
Consumers. From
the Washington
Post:
“A
product
that
was
assumed
to
be
benign
turns
out
to
be
dangerous.
A
heavily
marketed
new
drug
has
serious
side
effects.
A
medical
device
leaves
a
trail
of
complications.
In
all
of
these
scenarios,
the
public
is
supposed
to
be
protected
by
some
combination
of
federal
oversight,
scientific
and
medical
vigilance,
and
corporate
responsibility.
In No
More
Tears:
The
Dark
Secrets
of
Johnson
&
Johnson, investigative
reporter Gardiner
Harris shows
how
those
protections
can
fail
as
they
relate
to
several
products
from
a
single,
powerful
company,
starting
with
an
iconic
baby
powder
contaminated
with
asbestos
and
ending
with
a
coronavirus
vaccine
that
turned
out
to
be
less
than
efficacious.
…
He
also
traces
the
litigation,
because
the
field
he
describes
is
in
many
ways
‘regulated’
by
lawsuits
and
judgments,
with
their
own
incentives
and
imperatives,
where
instead
of
structures
that
ensure
protection,
change
depends
on
the
legal
action
of
the
already
injured.”
Read
more here (gift
link)
and
buy here.
Lawless by Leah
Litman. From
the
publisher:
“With
the
gravitas
of
Joan
Biskupic
and
the
irreverence
of
Elie
Mystal,
Leah
Litman
brings
her
signature
wit
to
the
question
of
what’s
gone
wrong
at
One
First
Street.
In Lawless,
she
argues
that
the
Supreme
Court
is
no
longer
practicing
law;
it’s
running
on
vibes.
By
‘vibes,’
Litman
means
legal-ish
claims
that
repackage
the
politics
of
conservative
grievance
and
dress
them
up
in
robes.
Major
decisions
adopt
the
language
and
posture
of
the
law,
while
in
fact
displaying
a
commitment
to
protecting
a
single
minority:
the
religious
conservatives
and
Republican
officials
whose
views
are
no
longer
shared
by
a
majority
of
the
country.
Dahlia
Lithwick’s Lady
Justice meets
Rebecca
Traister’s Good
and
Mad as
Litman
employs
pop
culture
references
and
the
latest
decisions
to
deliver
a
funny,
zeitgeisty,
pulls-no-punches
cri
de
coeur
undergirded
by
impeccable
scholarship.
She
gives
us
the
tools
we
need
to
understand
the
law,
the
dynamics
of
courts,
and
the
stakes
of
this
current
moment—even
as
she
makes
us
chuckle
on
every
page
and
emerge
empowered
to
fight
for
a
better
future.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
Justice
Abandoned:
How
the
Supreme
Court
Ignored
the
Constitution
and
Enabled
Mass
Incarceration by Rachel
Barkow. From
the
publisher:
“With
less
than
5
percent
of
the
world’s
population
and
almost
a
quarter
of
its
prisoners,
America
indisputably
has
a
mass
incarceration
problem.
How
did
it
happen?
Tough-on-crime
politics
and
a
racially
loaded
drug
war
are
obvious
and
important
culprits,
but
another
factor
has
received
remarkably
little
attention:
the
Supreme
Court.
The
Constitution
contains
numerous
safeguards
that
check
the
state’s
power
to
lock
people
away.
Yet
since
the
1960s
the
Supreme
Court
has
repeatedly
disregarded
these
limits,
bowing
instead
to
unfounded
claims
that
adherence
to
the
Constitution
is
incompatible
with
public
safety.
In Justice
Abandoned, Rachel
Barkow
highlights
six
Supreme
Court
decisions
that
paved
the
way
for
mass
incarceration.
These
rulings
have
been
crucial
to
the
meteoric
rise
in
pretrial
detention
and
coercive
plea
bargaining.
They
have
enabled
disproportionate
sentencing
and
overcrowded
prison
conditions.
And
they
have
sanctioned
innumerable
police
stops
and
widespread
racial
discrimination.
If
the
Court
were
committed
to
protecting
constitutional
rights
and
followed
its
standard
methods
of
interpretation,
none
of
these
cases
would
have
been
decided
as
they
were,
and
punishment
in
America
would
look
very
different
than
it
does
today.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
Bad
Law:
Ten
Popular
Laws
that
are
Ruining
America by Elie
Mystal. From
the
publisher:
“In Bad
Law,
the New
York
Times bestselling
author
of Allow
Me
To
Retort:
A
Black
Guy’s
Guide
to
the
Constitution reimagines
what
our
legal
system,
and
society
at
large,
could
look
like
if
we
could
move
past
legislation
plagued
by
racism,
misogyny,
and
corruption.
Through
accessible
yet
detailed
prose
and
trenchant
wit,
Mystal
argues
that
these
egregiously
awful
laws—his
‘Bill
of
Wrongs’—continue
to
cause
systematic
and
individual
harm
and
should
be
repealed
completely.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
What’s
Currently
Stacked
by
my
Bed
or
Packed
in
my
Suitcase
Looking
for
something
that
isn’t
related
to
legal
ethics?
Here
are
the
non-law
books
currently
stacked
on
my
nightstand
or
packed
in
my
suitcase
for
summer
reading.
The
Sirens’
Call:
How
Attention
Became
the
World’s
Most
Endangered
Resource by Chris
Hayes. From
the
publisher:“We
all
feel
it—the
distraction,
the
loss
of
focus,
the
addictive
focus
on
the
wrong
things
for
too
long.
We
bump
into
the
zombies
on
their
phones
in
the
street,
and
sometimes
they’re
us.
We
stare
in
pity
at
the
four
people
at
the
table
in
the
restaurant,
all
on
their
phones,
and
then
we
feel
the
buzz
in
our
pocket.
Something
has
changed
utterly:
for
most
of
human
history,
the
boundary
between
public
and
private
has
been
clear,
at
least
in
theory.
Now,
as
Chris
Hayes
writes,
‘With
the
help
of
a
few
tech
firms,
we
basically
tore
it
down
in
about
a
decade.’
Hayes
argues
that
we
are
in
the
midst
of
an
epoch-defining
transition
whose
only
parallel
is
what
happened
to
labor
in
the
nineteenth
century:
attention
has
become
a
commodified
resource
extracted
from
us,
and
from
which
we
are
increasingly
alienated. The
Sirens’
Call is
the
big-picture
vision
we
urgently
need
to
offer
clarity
and
guidance.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
Write
Through
It by Kate
McKean. From
the
publisher:
“Write
Through
It is
a
candid,
actionable
guide
to
navigating
the
rollercoaster
ride
of
writing
and
publishing,
both
on
and
off
the
page.
Literary
agent
and
author
Kate
McKean
has
been
educating
authors
and
demystifying
publishing
for
years
in
her
popular
newsletter Agents
&
Books,
and
now,
in
these
pages,
she
walks
writers
of
all
genres
through
every
stage
of
the
writing
and
publishing
process
and
its
accompanying
emotional
moments.
From
the
uncertainty
of
knowing
when
you
should
stop
fiddling
with
your
book
and
start
pitching
to
agents
to
how
to
deal
with
the
sting
of
rejection
and
the
elation
(and
fear)
of
getting
a
book
deal, Write
Through
It covers
it
all.
Drawing
from
her
own
extensive
experience,
McKean
goes
beyond
the
practicalities
of
writing
and
publishing
to
address
the
less-talked-about
emotional
side
of
the
journey.
This
book
is
a
must-read
for
any
writer
looking
to
understand
the
full
spectrum
of
the
writing
life.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
The
Lost
and
the
Found by Kevin
Fagan. From
the
publisher:
“Award-winning San
Francisco
Chronicle journalist
Kevin
Fagan
has
been
covering
homelessness
for
decades
and
has
spent
extensive
time
on
the
streets
for
his
reporting.
In The
Lost
and
the
Found, Fagan
introduces
us
to
Rita
and
Tyson,
two
unhoused
people
who
were
rescued
by
their
families
with
the
help
of
his
own
reporting,
and
chronicles
their
extraordinary
struggles
to
pull
themselves
out
of
homelessness
and
addiction.
Having
experienced
homelessness
himself,
Fagan
has
always
brought
a
deep
understanding
to
his
subjects
and
has
written
here
more
than
just
a
story
of
individuals
experiencing
homelessness,
but
also
a
compelling
look
at
the
link
between
homelessness
and
addiction
and
an
incisive
commentary
on
housing
and
equality. The
Lost
and
the
Found ends
with
both
enormous
tragedy
and
triumph
to
humanize
this
national
calamity,
forever
changing
the
way
we
see
the
unhoused.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
Dream
Count:
A
Novel by Chimamanda
Ngozi
Adichie. From
the
publisher:
“Chiamaka
is
a
Nigerian
travel
writer
living
in
America.
Alone
in
the
midst
of
the
pandemic,
she
recalls
her
past
lovers
and
grapples
with
her
choices
and
regrets.
Zikora,
her
best
friend,
is
a
lawyer
who
has
been
successful
at
everything
until—betrayed
and
brokenhearted—she
must
turn
to
the
person
she
thought
she
needed
least.
Omelogor,
Chiamaka’s
bold,
outspoken
cousin,
is
a
financial
powerhouse
in
Nigeria
who
begins
to
question
how
well
she
knows
herself.
And
Kadiatou,
Chiamaka’s
housekeeper,
is
proudly
raising
her
daughter
in
America—but
faces
an
unthinkable
hardship
that
threatens
all
she
has
worked
to
achieve.
In Dream
Count, Adichie
trains
her
fierce
eye
on
these
women
in
a
sparkling,
transcendent
novel
that
takes
up
the
very
nature
of
love
itself.
Is
true
happiness
ever
attainable
or
is
it
just
a
fleeting
state?
And
how
honest
must
we
be
with
ourselves
in
order
to
love,
and
to
be
loved?
A
trenchant
reflection
on
the
choices
we
make
and
those
made
for
us,
on
daughters
and
mothers,
on
our
interconnected
world, Dream
Countpulses
with
emotional
urgency
and
poignant,
unflinching
observations
of
the
human
heart,
in
language
that
soars
with
beauty
and
power.
It
confirms
Adichie’s
status
as
one
of
the
most
exciting
and
dynamic
writers
on
the
literary
landscape.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
Briefly
Perfectly
Human:
Making
an
Authentic
Life
by
Getting
Real
About
the
End by Alua
Arthur. From
the
publisher:
“For
her
clients
and
everyone
who
has
been
inspired
by
her
humanity,
Alua
Arthur
is
a
friend
at
the
end
of
the
world.
As
our
country’s
leading
death
doula,
she’s
spreading
a
transformative
message: thinking about
your
death—whether
imminent
or
not—will
breathe
wild,
new
potential
into
your
life.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
The
Creative
Act:
A
Way
of
Being by Rich
Rubin. From
the
publisher:
“Many
famed
music
producers
are
known
for
a
particular
sound
that
has
its
day.
Rick
Rubin
is
known
for
something
else:
creating
a
space
where
artists
of
all
different
genres
and
traditions
can
home
in
on
who
they
really
are
and
what
they
really
offer.
He
has
made
a
practice
of
helping
people
transcend
their
self-imposed
expectations
in
order
to
reconnect
with
a
state
of
innocence
from
which
the
surprising
becomes
inevitable.
Over
the
years,
as
he
has
thought
deeply
about
where
creativity
comes
from
and
where
it
doesn’t,
he
has
learned
that
being
an
artist
isn’t
about
your
specific
output,
it’s
about
your
relationship
to
the
world.
Creativity
has
a
place
in
everyone’s
life,
and
everyone
can
make
that
place
larger.
In
fact,
there
are
few
more
important
responsibilities. The
Creative
Act is
a
beautiful
and
generous
course
of
study
that
illuminates
the
path
of
the
artist
as
a
road
we
all
can
follow.
It
distills
the
wisdom
gleaned
from
a
lifetime’s
work
into
a
luminous
reading
experience
that
puts
the
power
to
create
moments—and
lifetimes—of
exhilaration
and
transcendence
within
closer
reach
for
all
of
us.”
Read
more
and
buy here.
Shameless
Self
Promotion
If
you
haven’t
read
them
yet,
here
are
two
recommendations
from
yours
truly. Shortlisted:
Women
in
the
Shadows
of
the
Supreme
Court is
packed
full
of
juicy
tidbits
about
women
considered
for
the
Supreme
Court
before
Sandra
Day
O’Connor
became
the
first
female
justice.
It
definitely
qualifies
as
a
beach
read.
And Law
Democratized:
A
Blueprint
for
Solving
the
Justice
Crisis includes
my
own
personal
story
of
surviving
a
traumatic
brain
injury,
which
inspired
me
to
explore
how
we
can
improve
access
to
legal
help.
Happy
Reading
Thank
you
for
indulging
me
in
a
different
sort
of
Roundup
to
celebrate
the
start
of
summer.
I’ll
be
back
next
week
with
a
whirlwind
of
ethics
news.
Keep
in
Touch
Renee
Knake
Jefferson
holds
the
endowed
Doherty
Chair
in
Legal
Ethics
and
is
a
Professor
of
Law
at
the
University
of
Houston.
Check
out
more
of
her
writing
at
the Legal
Ethics
Roundup.
Find
her
on
X
(formerly
Twitter)
at @reneeknake or
Bluesky
at legalethics.bsky.social.