Lawyers At Play

"Many early modern poets and playwrights were also members of the legal societies the Inns of Court and these authors shaped the development of key genres of the English Renaissance, especially lyric poetry, dramatic tragedy, satire, and masque. But how did the Inns come to be literary centers in the first place, and why were they especially vibrant at particular times? Early modernists have long understood that urban setting and institutional environment were central to this phenomenon: in the vibrant world of London, educated men with time on their hands turned to literary pastimes for something to do. Lawyers at Play proposes an additional, more essential dynamic: the literary culture of the Inns intensified in decades of profound transformation in the legal profession. Focusing on the first decade of Elizabeth's reign, the period when a large literary network first developed around the societies, this study demonstrates that the literary surge at this time developed out of and responded to a period of rapid expansion in the legal profession and in the career prospects of members. Poetry, translation, and performance were recreational pastimes; however, these activities also defined and elevated the status of inns-of-court men as qualified, learned, and ethical participants in England's "legal magistracy": those lawyers, judges, justices of the peace, civic office holders, town recorders, and gentleman landholders who managed and administered local and national governance of England. Lawyers at Play maps the literary terrain of a formative but understudied period in the English Renaissance, but it also provides the foundation for an argument that goes beyond the 1560s to provide a framework for understanding the connections between the literary and legal cultures of the Inns over the whole of the early modern period." -- Book jacket.

Many early modern poets and playwrights were also members of the legal societies the Inns of Court, and these authors shaped the development of key genres of the English Renaissance, especially lyric poetry, dramatic tragedy, satire, and masque. But how did the Inns come to be literary centres in the first place, and why were they especially vibrant at particular times? Early modernists have long understood that urban setting and institutional environment were central to this phenomenon: in the vibrant world of London, educated men with time on their hands turned to literary pastimes for something to do. Lawyers at Play proposes an additional, more essential dynamic: the literary culture of the Inns intensified in decades of profound transformation in the legal profession. Focusing on the first decade of Elizabeth's reign, the period when a large literary network first developed around the societies, this study demonstrates that the literary surge at this time developed out of and responded to a period of rapid expansion in the legal profession and in the career prospects of members. Poetry, translation, and performance were recreational pastimes; however, these activities also defined and elevated the status of inns-of-court men as qualified, learned, and ethical participants in England's 'legal magistracy': those lawyers, judges, justices of the peace, civic office holders, town recorders, and gentleman landholders who managed and administered local and national governance of England. Lawyers at Play maps the literary terrain of a formative but understudied period in the English Renaissance, but it also provides the foundation for an argument that goes beyond the 1560s to provide a framework for understanding the connections between the literary and legal cultures of the Inns over the whole of the early modern period.

"He was lying to you, I said reading with my head down, half listening to her lawyer story in the background."A few years ago, those words slipped out - to a client no less - and have culminated in the writing of this funny, honest, andblunt assessment of the practice of law. David M. Cook shares the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about lawyers, clients and the realities of the legal system. You'll learn: - What the attorneys are really thinking when you meet them forthe first time - Why clients feel compelled to manipulate their stories andactions versus the reality - What's really going on with the judge and how he or she got there - About Bill Collectors - who are these people?- Why it can be so expensive to hire an attorney- What happens when your attorney isn't paying attention to your case- How to interview, hire and fire an attorney Experience an entertaining, compelling, and totally honest view of the legal system, legal clients, and the crazies attracted to the field. In Games Lawyers Play, you'll learn how you can become extremely effective in your interactions with a system that often lacks logic.

The book The Lawyers of Chambia (Licensed Criminals for Criminals) is a satire piece of work that is aimed to provoke the reader's thoughts in legal-related matters. More than getting a reader to think, the book seeks to drive readers to acquire general legal knowledge. The book also seeks to reduce the conflicts that arise between lawyers and their clients by provoking the reader to take interest in legal matters that affect them instead of totally and completely leaving all knowledge and responsibility of their personal legal problems to a lawyer. The book highlights the crucial role a legal system plays in the development of a country and the world at large.

In recent years, there has been a continuing and persistent world-wide interest in the interaction between the two disciplines of law and literature. Although there have been many collections of primary texts that combined these two areas, this volume presents literary analyses and criticism in an attempt to assess the varied relationships between law and justice, between lawyers and clients, and between readers’ perceptions and authors’ intent, hopefully suggesting why they have continually been yoked together. One similarity between the two is that lawyers, like writers, must catch their audience’s attention by novelty of scene, distinctiveness of voice, and ingenuity of design. Furthermore, legal advocates must recreate a concrete sense of reality, developing vivid and valid pictures of a specific time and place. In short, both lawyers and writers attempt to provide a basis for juries / readers to judge defendants / characters by their motivations and their actions and to decide whether a favorable ruling / assessment is justified. Collectively, the essays in this book are designed to deal with themes of guilt and innocence, right and wrong, morality and legality. The essays also suggest that the world as it is delineated by lawyers is indeed a text that like its literary counterparts sometimes blurs the distinction between fact and fiction as it attempts to define “truth” and to establish criteria for “impartial” justice. By exploring interdisciplinary contexts, readers will surely be made more aware, more sensitive to the roles that stories play in the legal profession and to the dilemmas faced by legal systems that often succeed in maintaining the rights and privileges of a dominant societal group at the expense of a less powerful one.

What determines the systematic allocation of status, power, and economic reward among lawyers? What kind of social structure organizes lawyers' roles in the bar and in the larger community? As Heinz and Laumann convincingly demonstrate, the legal profession is stratified primarily by the character of the clients served, not by the type of legal service rendered. In fact, the distinction between corporate and individual clients divides the bar into two remarkably separate hemispheres. Using data from extensive personal interviews with nearly 800 Chicago lawyers, the authors show that lawyers who serve one type of client seldom serve the other. Furthermore, lawyers' political, ethno-religious, and social ties are very likely to correspond to those of their client types. Greater deference is consistently shown to corporate lawyers, who seem to acquire power by association with their powerful clients. Heinz and Laumann also discover that these two "hemispheres" of the legal profession are not effectively integrated by intraprofessional organizations such as the bar, courts, or law schools. The fact that the bar is structured primarily along extraprofessional lines raises intriguing questions about the law and the nature of professionalism, questions addressed in a provocative and far-ranging final chapter. This volume, published jointly with the American Bar Foundation, offers a uniquely sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of lawyers' professional lives. It will be of exceptional importance to sociologists and others interested in the legal profession, in the general study of professions, and in social stratification and the distribution of power.

A study of the impact of business on legal practice exploring the attitudes and aspirations of lawyers and linking the findings to questions of the effective management of legal services. Included is a comparative analysis of trends in the UK and Australia.