• This Month’s Issue
• Transplanting Life & Law
• Corporate/Commercial Jurisprudence
• Law as Objective?
• Forthcoming

This issue features two reviews concerning freedom of speech: Jonathan Bloom reviews Rod Smolla's Deliberate Intent: A Lawyer Tells the True Story of Murder by the Book, and Patricia Cain examines Free Speech and the Politics of Identity by David Richards. Next, Kermit Hall analyzes Peter Irons's A People's History of the Supreme Court. In the jurisprudence category, Chris Rideout reviews Minding the Law by Anthony Amsterdam & Jerome Bruner, and Edward Rubin offers his views of Peter Schuck's The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance, after which Peter Schuck replies. (We are especially pleased to have reviews by Professors Hall and Rubin, two of our contributing editors.) Finally, Johan van der Vyver looks at Black Lawyers, White Courts: The Soul of South African Law by Kenneth Broun.

Disagree with a review? Talk back to us. We invite your input.

Looking for a book? Check the selections listed in Book Notices.

The demand is great, supply limited. Ethically speaking, how should the law regulate organ transplants? Or, to put it other ways: What is the meaning of death? Who owns an organ? What is informed consent? And, how should commerce be regulated in such situations? All of this, and more, is the subject of Legal and Ethical Aspects of Organ Transplantation (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2001) (ISBN: 0521651646) by David Price.

In the forthcoming volume, Professor Price analyzes existing laws and policies governing transplantation practices around the world. He examines cadaver organ procurement policies, use of living donors, trading in human organs, experimental transplant procedures, and xenotransplantation, among other topics. The book's ten chapters are divided into three parts:

• Part I: Introduction to Cadaveric Organ Transplantation
• Part II: Introduction to Living Donor Organ Transplantation
• Part III: General Issues

The chapters address a variety of topics, including:

• When is a potential donor a cadaver?
• Treatment of potential donors prior to death
• The rationales and limits for living donor organ transplantation
• Contentious classes of donors

Legal and Ethical Aspects of Organ Transplantation is scheduled for release this January in England.

The Jurisprudential Foundations of Corporate and Commercial Law, edited by Jody S. Kraus & Steven D. Walt (Cambridge University Press, 2000) (ISBN: 0521591570), collects new essays by several law and economics scholars currently writing in commercial law theory. The essays begin with the premise that "efficiency analysis" is the dominant theoretical paradigm in contemporary corporate and commercial law scholarship. Accordingly, the book addresses such questions as:

• Is moral theory irrelevant to efficiency analysis in corporate and commercial law?
• If relevant, are morality and efficiency compatible?
• What is the best way to pursue efficiency in corporate and commercial law?

The contents and contributors are as follows:

1. "Karl Llewellyn and the Origins of Contract Theory" (Alan Schwartz)
2. "Economic Efficiency and the Ex Ante Perspective" (Daniel A. Farber)
3. "Constrained Optimization: Corporate Law and the Maximization of Social Welfare" (Lewis A. Kornhauser)
4. "Do Trade Customs Exist?" (Richard Craswell)
5. "Rethinking the Uniformity Norm in Commercial Law" (Robert E. Scott)
6. "In Defense of the Incorporation Strategy" (Jody S. Kraus & Steven D. Walt)

The Jurisprudential Foundations of Corporate and Commercial Law is scheduled to be published this month. In December, Books-on-Law will feature a review of this book, along with reviews of four other works, in a special issue on "Law & Economics" publications in 2000.

So just how objective are "neutral principles"? Or, what "original intent"? Is "textualism" neutral? What about Professor Ronald Dworkin's statement?: "I see no point in trying to find some general argument that moral or political or aesthetic or interpretive judgments are objective." [A Matter of Principle (Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 171]

Such questions, and others, are the focus of Objectivity in Law and Morals (Cambridge University Press, 2000) (ISBN: 0521554306), edited by Professor Brian Leiter. The soon-to-be-released volume contains seven original essays that examine objectivity from both metaphysical and epistemological perspectives. The contributors set out to develop various approaches, constructive and critical, to the fundamental problems of objectivity in morality. In doing so, the book examines the interrelationship between objectivity in ethics and objectivity in law. Objectivity in Law and Morals surveys issues in meta-ethics, and examines their relevance to theorizing about law and adjudication.

In addition to Professor Leiter, contributors include: David O. Brink, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Joseph Raz, David Sosa, Philip Pettit, and Gerald J. Postema.

In November, Books-on-Law features reviews of books relating to Women & Law. This issue is scheduled to contain the following:

• Erwin Chemerinsky, reviewing Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Harvard University Press, 2000)
• Julie Goldscheid & Yolanda S. Wu, reviewing Nan Stein, Classrooms and Courtrooms: Facing Sexual Harassment in K-12 Schools (Teachers College Press, 1999)
• Laurie Levenson, reviewing Richard K. Sherwin, When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line Between Law and Popular Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2000)
• Lyrissa Lidsky, reviewing Caroline A. Forell & Donna M. Matthews, A Law of Her Own: The Reasonable Woman as a Measure of Man (New York University Press, 2000)
• Lynn Hecht Schafran, reviewing Randy Thornhill & Craig Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (MIT Press, 2000)
• Irene E. Stewart, reviewing Beth Reingold, Representing Women: Sex, Gender, and Legislative Behavior in Arizona and California (University of North Carolina Press, 2000)
• Kristina Zarlengo, reviewing Betty Friedan, Life So Far: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2000)

Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, Editors, Books-on-Law

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JURIST: Books-on-Law™ is edited by Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover of the Seattle University School of Law.

Board of Editorial Consultants: Raj Bhala, George Washington University Law School; Miriam Galston, George Washington University Law School; Kermit Hall, Ohio State University College of Law; Yale Kamisar, University of Michigan Law School; Lisa G. Lerman, Catholic University of America School of Law; David M. O’Brien, University of Virginia Department of Government and Foreign Affairs; Judith Resnik, Yale Law School; Edwin L. Rubin, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Steven H. Shriffrin, Cornell Law School; Nadine Strossen, New York Law School; David B. Wilkins, Harvard Law School.

Administrative Assistant for Books-on-Law: Ms. Nancy Ammons
Technical Assistant for Books-on-Law: Steven Pacillio, Esq.

© Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover, 2000.