Book Reviews

• Changing Your Mind: The Law of Regretted Decisions
• Reflections of a Radical Moderate
• Practices and Principles: Approaches to Ethical and Legal Judgment
• The Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam and Eve
• The Lost Children of Wilder
• Brush with the Law
• Federal Privacy Rules for Financial Institutions

• To review a book

The work is not simply a book on contract law. Farnsworth takes general contract principles, but shows them at work in a variety of situations where someone has had a change of mind, situations that would fall into other areas of law - tort, property, wills, and family. He defines the elementary contract notions of the intention principle and the reliance principle, expounds on their legal development, and shows how they shape the law behind enforcing or forgiving certain commitments. He also gives several other principles that support enforcing or forgiving commitments: the dependence principle, the public interest principle, the anti-speculation principle, and the repose principle. These principles also are found in the law behind the reversibility and irreversibility of relinquishments and preclusions, a topic Farnsworth covers in the second part of the book.

Farnsworth's organization of the book, including his use of chapter summaries and an "interlude" between the book's major sections, makes the reading easier. He possesses a powerful command of the language, using examples from classic literature along with examples from common case law to present a readable text that is neither too disjointed nor too dry. Finally, he ties his concepts neatly together in the epilogue.

In the end, Farnsworth concludes, there are some decisions you are just going to have to regret. After reading his book, at least you'll understand why.

Lisa A. Mazzie, U.W. 1999 cum laude, Order of the Coif, is an associate at Solheim Billing & Grimmer S.C., Madison.

Reflections of a Radical Moderate originally was published in 1996, and Richardson wrote a new preface before he died in 1999. While ostensibly his memoirs, the book's real purpose is to promote public service and re-energize American democracy. His call to action is two-pronged.

First, he insists the government "urgently needs a new generation of gifted public servants" and bemoans the increasing numbers of talented people who choose the private sector instead. Reflecting on his own experiences and those of colleagues who left "responsible but not necessarily prominent" government positions for "prestigious and well-paid" private sector jobs, Richardson states that"not one finds his present occupation as rewarding as his government service." He urges the government to enhance the attractiveness of public sector jobs, and job seekers to put aside money in favor of the satisfaction of making a difference.

Second, Richardson demands that citizens take an active role in democracy. He chastises people for acquiescing to slogans rather than demanding substance, selfishly preferring to satisfy short-term wants instead of responsibly striving to meet long-term needs, and treating the political process as a zero-sum game. As examples, he contrasts the electoral success of the congressional candidates who ran on the Contract with America (of which only a modest portion was enacted) with the failure of his own campaign for a US Senate seat (which he attributes largely to his honesty regarding the need to raise taxes as part of a responsible fiscal policy).

Richardson begins the book by describing the history of American democracy in glowing terms, proceeds to identify the problems that now imperil its continuing success, and finishes by suggesting how both the leaders and the led can address these issues. Throughout, he exhorts everyone to put aside their cynicism and do something. Readers of Reflections of a Radical Moderate will be encouraged at least to try.

Scott C. Amendola, U.W. 1998, is a staff attorney for the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, St. Louis, Mo.

Tunick applies this theory to three areas: broken promises, breached contracts, and search and seizure jurisprudence. He cites numerous cases to support his theory that one may use principles to criticize the breaking of a promise, the breach of a contract, or an unreasonable search and seizure, but in the end one also must look to the practices of a society to give meaning to the principles.

While the reader is left in general agreement with Tunick (the position is not really radical), a sense of incompleteness remains. It would be interesting to discover Tunick's criteria for deciding when to depart from "principles" in judging a questionable search and seizure, for example, and call upon the "practices" of our society. It seems that we as a society already do use both principles and practices in making these decisions; it is the framework that we lack.

Jill Madden Melchoir, Cincinnati 1999, is an editorial manager for the Case Law Summaries Retrospective Division of LexisNexis.

The reader is taken on a strange walk through the looking glass of the Reagan 1980s, where talk show hosts and televangelists help chart litigation strategy for a US attorney general. It is a strange world of collusion and odd law enforcement priorities, an ill-conceived and ill-executed domestic version of Iran-Contra. It is a story in which the bitter irony of a coterie espousing less government while using government in a ham-fisted manner is driven home again and again.

It is useful to hear this story from someone like Harvey, someone not loaded down with the baggage or hysterics of a Flynt. This is an account from an American businessman's point of view, a believer in the system up to the day that system decided to crush him. This point of view makes it possible to see how our nation continues to wrestle with the twin demons of control and permissiveness.

Because of the context and timeframe, we get to see how these twin demons create explosive and dangerous pressures in our society, particularly in the Republican Party. The conflict is between the libertarian impulse that guides our notions of civil liberties (and the free market) and the authoritarian impulse with its large appetite for social controls. In this conflict the "I know obscenity when I see it" crowd has much latitude for its subjective disgust. Neither Holy Scripture nor the Federalist Papers are particularly helpful in evaluating sex toys.

Readers can rest assured that this reviewer did not take Harvey at his word about the benign nature of his product line. I obtained a copy of the Adam and Eve catalog and reviewed it closely. I can state with confidence that Harvey offers nothing that cannot be purchased in the adult novelty stores that are present in almost every city in America. If anything, the wares are more tasteful, and catalog shopping spares the timid the sometimes-seedy gauntlet surrounding many of the novelty stores.

The subject lends itself to snickers and graffiti, but the principles here are valued ones of free expression. If only defenders of political expression had Harvey's tenacity (and resources). We would be a lot closer to that dream of a pluralistic society than we are today.

Dennis Boyer, West Virginia 1978, government relations counsel to AFSCME, Madison, collects and writes regional folktales, and one day hopes to pen an earthly collection of adult bedtime stories.

During the 1970s children's shelters resembled Dark Ages prisons and private agencies dictated their own agendas, reserving treatment, not for those children most in need, but for those children, primarily white, fitting the agencies' religious criteria. The system routinely ignored children's best interests; "permanency" was mere lip service. In 1974, for example, out of 2,123 children in foster care in New York City, only 10 were adopted.

In exhaustive journalistic detail, Nina Bernstein puts a human face on a bureaucratic system in which children were shuffled repeatedly from one placement to the next, frequently with devastating psychological consequences. Often, perfectly normal children, Shirley Wilder and her son Lamont included, were placed in psychiatric institutions or state reformatories for lack of an available placement.

The Wilder suit filed against New York City and the private religious agencies it contracted with was premised on a First Amendment violation of the establishment clause, but sought equal treatment for all children, regardless of race or religious affiliation. The suit became a political battlefield that resulted in a settlement that was to place foster children on a first come-first served basis, but actually was never implemented.

The book ends on a sad note, with Shirley Wilder's death at 39 of AIDS. The Wilder decree, dissolved into another lawsuit, didn't change the system. Rather, the system buckled under new social pressures such as crack cocaine, AIDS, and homelessness that tripled the number of foster children by the 1990s.

JoAnn M. Hornak, U.W. 1987, is a Milwaukee County assistant district attorney, currently handling Chapter 48 Children in Need of Protection or Services (CHIPS) cases.

Why the authors seem proud of their achievement is both fuzzy and remarkable. But the book is entertaining in a voyeuristic way; it is, in many ways, the ultimate beach book. We are introduced to familiar law student stereotypes: the students who delight in the failures of others, figuring that it will only increase their own chances of success; the obsessive students who, having been embarrassed once in class, brief every case, attend every class, and become rabid class participants; and the 24-7 students who completely immerse themselves in law school and don't come up for air until graduation. The authors point, somewhat predictably, to Scott Turow's prominent book, One L, as their reference point upon entering law school. And their law school anecdotes echo the more familiar stories from One L.

Once beyond the quirky stories of conventional law student life, the authors depart dramatically from the One L story line. Law school is a joke to them and their account quickly degrades into vivid descriptions of sex, drugs, and gambling. Mr. Marquart tells of his transition from his small-Texas-town roots to his acceptance to Harvard Law and ultimate decision to spend his law school career gambling in casinos. Mr. Byrnes was a bicycle messenger, turned political speechwriter for the Massachusetts governor, who went off to Stanford Law. Once there, he revels in his habits of ditching class in favor of drinking binges, pot smoking, and regular travels to San Francisco to smoke crack. He even fits in a Halloween orgy.

This purports to be nonfiction, but can we really believe it? Has it been embellished? Do we care? Did the authors report this on the character and fitness section of their bar applications? The authors' point, it seems, is that law school is not that challenging after all. Whether or not that's true, the more salient point of Brush with the Law is that good taste is no impediment to writing books.

Jon Furlow, Minnesota 1986, is a litigation partner at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, Madison.

The book contains the text of the Act and implementing rules, substantial commentary on the requirements imposed by this law, and the history behind their adoption. For outside counsel advising many different types of financial institutions, it is helpful to have all of the rules in one place and the commentary is generally insightful. To those new to this law, the commentary sheds light on concepts such as the distinction made between "consumer" and "customer," the scope of the rules adopted by the different regulatory agencies, and the intersection of this law and the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The resource would be more helpful if it included descriptions of the differences between the regulations adopted by different agencies, even though the differences may be slight.

Amy M. Bentley, U.W. 1998, is an associate at Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek, Milwaukee, concentrating in consumer finance law.