Book Reviews
Still Unequal: The Shameful Truth About
Women and Justice in America
By Lorraine Dusky (New York, NY: Crown Publishers Inc., 1996).
452 pgs. Hardcover. $27.50. To order, call (212) 572-2253.
Reviewed by Susan K. Taylor
If one can endure the author's bitter tone through the first 100
pages of this enlightening text, it actually becomes quite readable.
Alternating between arguments detailing the historical injustices
against women in all aspects of the law, and providing well-documented
anecdotal examples of these injustices, Dusky covers the gamut.
The book thoroughly and at times repetitively discusses three major
aspects of the law as it relates to women: legal education, women at the
bar, and the law and the courts. The author has done her research and
the discussion is heavily supported with endnotes reflecting the
studies, interviews and statistics upon which she bases her
discussion.
She proves women have justifiable complaints about much of legal
education. For example, women are largely ignored in classrooms,
sexually harassed by students and faculty, and endure sexist and
outdated textbooks. However, some of her points are ludicrous. For
example, she proposes that because women want to discuss how they feel
about the laws and cases, classroom time should be used to discuss such
feelings. This is unrealistic. The judge doesn't want to hear an
attorney's feelings for the law or the case. The judge just wants to
hear evidence and legal arguments.
Dusky provides painful detail, largely from interviews, of many
women's struggles in the real world of law practice. Here is the
well-known glass ceiling, the impenetrable "Good Old Boys" network,
sexual harassment and the family-unfriendly grind of billable hours and
rainmaking. The message is, if you want to practice successfully in a
classic firm, get a mentor, look plain but sophisticated, have no family
and try to "fit in." This is where most women, bright and successful in
school, climb a different ladder because they choose to have a life
outside the practice of law. Consequently, as corporate counsel,
government attorneys and the like, women earn less than their male
counterparts. Interestingly, the author cites several examples of the
most successful and highest-earning women attorneys in law firms. These
women are with firms predominantly comprised of women with devoted
clients. They compete well with the male-dominated firms, and the
attorneys have lives and high earnings.
The courts section covers a variety of topics for which Dusky details
the misery of women's plight, including the treatment of women generally
in the courtroom in family law matters, in domestic violence and as
victims of sexual assault. The most poignant aspect is the continuing
thread of sexual harassment and abuse. In law school, women suffer it
from the instructors; in firms, they suffer it from the senior
attorneys; and in court and judicial clerkships, they suffer it from the
judges. In each instance, the penalty for complaining is loss to the
woman's career: The harasser or abuser controls the woman's grades, her
job and assignment of cases, or the outcome of a case in which she is
counsel or litigant. In those instances where justice was dealt, the
male offenders had earned much, enjoyed years of protection by their
male peers and abused sometimes dozens of victims before the victims
came forward. Often it took a lawsuit to have these abusers removed; and
coming forward always resulted in loss of income and career for the
female victims.
Still Unequal is a valuable resource for those working to
update law texts, legal education, harassment procedures (especially
those against professors, senior employees and judges), courtroom
procedures, domestic and sexual assault law, hiring and promotions
procedures in legal employment, and for legal ethics education.
Susan K. Taylor, Maryland 1980, has
practiced legislative law in Maryland, and general practice in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. She currently is a freelance technical
writer in southeast Wisconsin.
Advising Older Clients and Their Families,
Vol. 1
Betsy Abramson, Richard H. Betz, Shirin H. Cabraal, Ralph M.
Cagle, Matthew P. Dregne, Susan Ezalarab, C. Frederick Geilfuss II,
Mitchell M. Hagopian, Rachelle R. Hart, Daniel P. Hayes, Margaret W.
Hickey, Mary M. Hogue, Barbara S. Hughes, Michael R. Luttig, Donna
McDowell, Harold A. Menendez, Jone Pedersen, Frederick Perillo, Carol
Wessels Plaisted, Greg W. Renz, Jeffrey D. Spitzer-Resnick, Paul A.
Sturgul, Bruce A. Tammi, Susan S. Ten Pas and Gretchen Viney. (Madison,
WI: State Bar CLE Books and Elder Law Section, 1997.) 550 pgs. $125. To
order, call (800) 362-8096.
Reviewed by Sara Buscher
Aging baby boomers and their parents are driving an ever-increasing
demand for elder law services. The elder law attorney advocates for the
independence, dignity and rights of older persons and helps solve their
problems using a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach. Knowledge of
trusts and estates, estate, gift and income tax law, probate, property
and marital property law, family law, Medical Assistance and other
public programs used by the middle class, Social Security, Medicare,
pensions, IRAs, insurance regulations, security regulations, civil
rights and elder abuse may be used in this practice.
The State Bar's CLE Books Division and Elder Law Section have
copublished the first volume of a two-volume set, Advising Older Clients and
Their Families, for Wisconsin practitioners. The authors and
advisors, many of whom are among Wisconsin's foremost elder law
attorneys, have astutely divided their coverage of this topic between
volumes.
Lawyers thinking about practicing elder law and those whose existing
practices are serving aging client bases will find this first volume has
much to offer. The second volume will include topics more typically
identified with elder law, such as guardianship and divestment.
The first of the book's three parts, entitled Elder Law Practice and
Resources, will be extremely valuable to anyone thinking about devoting
a law practice to older clients. This part discusses growing demand for
services, practice building advice, management issues and ethical
issues. Lists of professional organizations, a selected bibliography of
the most authoritative resources, and a description of Wisconsin's Elder
Support Network will save countless hours.
The book's second part, Employment, Housing and Family Law, covers
topics that naturally extend existing practices into areas serving older
clients, including age, disability and housing discrimination; hot
issues like grandparents' visitation rights, guardianship of minors and
juvenile court proceedings for custodial grandparents; and special
financing programs aimed at elderly individuals such as property tax
deferral, home improvement loans and reverse mortgages.
The third part, Retirement, Social Security and SSI, gives a good
overview of pension plans and individual retirement accounts. The Social
Security and SSI chapters cover benefit eligibility and applications.
They extensively cover appeals, and administrative and judicial review
procedures. This material lays the foundation for the second volume's
topics because Wisconsin is an "SSI" state for Medical Assistance
purposes.
Each topic has a well-written outline that is heavily footnoted to
sources. Spotting issues and finding answers to questions in unfamiliar
territory is easy. The book is well-indexed, and has a useful table of
contents, helpful appendices, bibliographies and glossaries. It contains
helpful tips from individual practitioners. The coverage is current,
up-to-date and appropriate. It is an excellent addition to the law
office library.
Sara Buscher, Marquette 1994, a Madison
attorney and CPA, is a past member of the Wisconsin Elder Law Section's
Board and a frequent contributor to its newsletter. Her practice
emphasizes service to Alzheimer's families.
The International Dimensions of Internal
Conflict
Edited by Michael E. Brown. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996).
627 pgs. $25. To order, call (800) 356-0343.
Reviewed by Terry F. Peppard
The compleat lawyer needs a grasp of legal theory and processes, and
of the complex human relationships that make lawyers useful, even
necessary, in a world increasingly defined by conflicts great and
small.
The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict explores -
from the perspective of ethnic and political geography - preventing,
managing and resolving an important class of large-scale human
conflicts, which are those confined, at least at the outset, to a single
state's borders. Call this the middle-macrocosmic view.
The book is as fresh as today's headlines. Part I is a stage-setting
collection of separate essays on eight global hotspots, each by a
recognized expert. It gets off to an explosive start in chapter one,
"Fear and Loathing in the Former Yugoslavia," and never lets up. The
essayists paint detailed portraits of their chosen regions, from
East-central Europe through South Asia, the Middle East and Africa, to
an account of "Peacemaking and Violence in Latin America." Some readers
will find in Part I the book's most engaging material, and a sufficient
reason to pick it up.
Part II is for the more committed reader. In eight chapters by a
largely new panel of essayists, it examines issues raised by the
treatments given to internal conflicts in Part I; questions such as the
lessons of U.S. military interventions in Somalia and elsewhere, the
enforceability of arms limitation initiatives, the efficacy of economic
sanctions, the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like the Red
Cross, and more.
It's more technical than Part I, and a good bit drier, but Part II
provides a necessary backdrop for the payoff that follows in Part III,
in which editor Michael Brown offers an intricate critique of the themes
exposed in the earlier segments. Brown dismisses as simplistic and
"unsatisfying" the common contemporary explanation for the causes of
internal conflicts; that is, that they stem merely from ancient ethnic
or religious hatreds. In its place, he proposes a multi-factor framework
for assessing the causes of the 25 or so such conflicts he counted as
active when the book went to press.
Brown's conclusion: The predominant cause of serious internal
conflicts in nations worldwide is the misbehavior of "domestic elites,"
usually but not always political leaders who, with disturbing
regularity, create or promote conflicts in pursuit of their political or
economic ends.
Brown's well-documented analysis makes for absorbing and disturbing
reading. It's suitable for any compleat lawyer, whether the
international trade specialist intent upon understanding the potential
effects of internal conflicts on clients' foreign investments or the
domestic practitioner who wants to appreciate the meaning of tomorrow's
headlines. Better still, it's a welcome tool for any of us willing and
able to extrapolate Brown and Co.'s insights to the microcosmic settings
of America's courts and conference rooms.
Terry F. Peppard, U.W. 1973, practices in
Madison. He is completing a graduate degree in international business
and international law.
Constitutional Politics in the
States: Contemporary Controversies and Historical Patterns
Edited by G. Alan Tarr (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group,
1996). 248 pgs. $59.95. To order, call (800) 225-5800.
Reviewed by James J. Casey Jr.
This book is a collection of articles examining state constitutional
politics and how it is a central element in the broader context of state
politics.
To advance understanding of state politics in its constitutional
context, the articles provide analysis and research of different aspects
of state constitutional politics and provide specific case studies. For
example, one chapter is devoted to California's Proposition 8, a
"Victim's Bill of Rights," which was passed on the referendum ballot in
1982. A second chapter is dedicated to a discussion of a
counterrevolution of opinion in California in response to the California
Supreme Court's expansion of criminal and other civil rights past the
law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the removal
of Chief Justice Rose Bird and two colleagues in 1986. Read together,
these chapters illustrate that in rare instances the electorate will
hold courts accountable for their rulings, and that certain segments of
the electorate can be mobilized for political activity when the right
combination of public sentiment and political resources are present.
Other chapters include a survey of the success and failure of
constitutional amendments in New York, the constitutional right to
privacy in Florida and the history of New Jersey litigation regarding
financing of public education.
The most important and politically salient contributions are the
chapters on the politics of term limits and the broader patterns of
constitutional amendments among the states. States engage in the process
of constitutional amendment far more often than at the federal level, a
frequency that seems to be linked to state constitution lengths. The
longer a constitution, the greater frequency of amendment. The federal
constitution is altered rarely, and most alteration comes through
judicial interpretation. State constitutions are freely amended in
response to changes in the political climate, and where there is no lack
of judicial interpretation. While the federal and state constitutions
are considered "living" political and legal documents, in the latter
situation steps are freely taken to amend. From a procedural standpoint
state constitutions are easier to amend, but there is more to this
tendency than procedural technicality.
In terms of legal and political saliency, term limits is perhaps the
book's most issue-oriented contribution. The phenomena of term limits
was first articulated at the local level. In most cases, only once the
issue was placed upon the state ballot, were professional pollsters and
political operatives used to make the final push for statewide passage.
The success and failure of term limits referendums have advanced to the
stage where political alliances and linkages have developed across state
lines. What originally was a state-generated idea has developed into a
national issue with national political organizations. The book provides
an excellent outline of this phenomenon, and illustrates where legal
efforts and political impacts intersect.
The book includes a bibliographic essay of primary and secondary
sources to the issues it outlines, and also provides an excellent
introduction to state constitutional politics. For the constitutional
law attorney, the book's benefits are not so much the "black letter law"
but rather the explanation that constitutional law has definite
constitutional political impacts.
James J. Casey Jr., Dayton 1988, is a
sponsored program officer at Northwestern University and an adjunct
faculty member in public administration and law at Upper Iowa
University. His research interests involve the legal and political
contexts of public policy.
Wisconsin Lawyer
