Lawyer In The Courtroom

In this electrifying bestseller, the shrewd and voluble trial lawyer Louis Nizer, who made a long career of representing famous people in famous cases, recounts some of his significant civil and criminal cases. Nizer rose to national fame with his real-life accounts of tension-filled courtrooms and the fervor of the advocate, and “My Life in Court” proved to be no exception: it rose to the top of the Times’s best-seller list on its publication in 1961 and logged 72 weeks as a sales leader. The book is an in-depth collection of some of Mr. Nizer’s court case success stories, including his client Quentin Reynolds’ famous libel action against the columnist Westbrook Pegler, which would also become the basis of the 1963 Broadway play “A Case of Libel.” Praised by critics as “entertaining and philosophically instructive, an unusual combination,” Nizer’s movie-like plots of real-life courtroom drama will keep you captivated until the very last page.

The thrilling story of Judge Samuel S. Leibowitz and the front page criminal cases that highlighted his career as the nation’s most famous trial lawyer. “Dramatic and exciting as they come.... All of the famous trials of the last quarter century are brought to life in this exciting book penned by a master writer. It is a raw and violent work and certainly tops in interest.”—LOS ANGELES Herald Express “Exciting reading is this record of a great lawyer. The stories recorded here, now within the framework of law and time, are even more fascinating than when they rated banner headlines in the daily press.”—CHICAGO Sun “This book is far more exciting than any detective story you are likely to encounter, for it is the real thing.”—CLEVELAND Press “COURTROOM is a book which will have many absorbed readers, and a book which should do much to correct any popular impression that may exist as to the probity of lawyers who practice at the criminal bar...breezy, fast moving, and frankly written.”—SAN FRANCISCO Chronicle

A selection of stories featuring the legal profession, as chosen by notable members of the legal community.

In this book, which was first published in 1954, U.S. defense attorney Lloyd Paul Stryker takes the reader through every step of a case: the first meeting with the client, the questions to find the facts, the arrival in court on the first day of the trial, the selection of jurors, the carefully collected information about the characters of the judge and the prosecuting attorney, the importance of the opening address and the summation. Above all, he reveals the fascinating art of cross-examination which he considered to be the greatest weapon in the arsenal of a trial lawyer. The author clears up for all time the matter of legal ethics, of a defense attorney’s responsibility to undertake a defense, and under what circumstances he must refuse it. Also, he tells wonderfully exciting stories about the famous trial lawyers of an earlier day—Martin W. Littleton, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate—as well as such modern greats as Robert Jackson and John W. Davis.

This book primarily covers legal professional ethics and court etiquette relevant to the duty of a lawyer in the major legal systems of the world. It emphasizes the point that lawyers must not only practice their craft with absolute integrity but should also be well behaved and civil to each other, the courts and other court users. Lawyers are first and foremost officers of the court; it is their duty to assist the court come to a proper and just determination of the issues in dispute, serving before the court. A lawyer’s duty to the court includes candour, honesty, and fairness. Lawyers, especially in an adversarial system, are required to act professionally with scrupulous fairness and integrity and to aid the court in promoting the cause of justice. There is an obligation on a lawyer not to take on a case in circumstances where the lawyer is plainly unqualified for the complexity of the task or has an inadequate knowledge of the area of law concerned. It is the duty of every lawyer to assist the judge by simplification and concentration and not to advance a multitude of ingenious arguments in the hope that one of the many arguments will win the day. Litigants and their lawyers are not entitled to the uncontrolled use of a trial judge’s time. Litigants are only entitled to so much of the trial judge’s time as is necessary for the proper determination of the relevant issues. Without this assistance from lawyers, the courts are unlikely to succeed in their endeavour to administer justice in a timely and efficient manner.