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    Wisconsin Lawyer
    July 01, 2000

    Wisconsin Lawyer July 2000: Book Reviews

     

    Wisconsin Lawyer: July 2000

    Vol. 73, No. 7, July 2000

    Book Reviews


    This Month's Featured Selections


    Transforming Transforming Practices: Finding Joy
    and Satisfaction in the Legal Life

    By Steven Keeva
    (Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, 1999).
    226 pgs. $17.47.

    Reviewed by Jason T. Studinski

    This book is an epiphany. I recommend it without hesitation. Transforming Practices offers a long overdue integrated approach to the practice of law. As Keeva notes, "If the goal of law school is to teach you to think like a lawyer, the goal of this book is to enhance the experience of being a lawyer by reminding you of how you can cultivate your innate ability to think, feel, and be exactly what you are - a human being."

    Keeva accomplishes this task by profiling individual lawyers who demonstrate an aspect of his all-encompassing approach to law practice. The reader delves into the lives of the featured lawyers and watches them hone their skills and regularly summon and apply them with razor-like precision. Along the way, these lawyers search for meaning in what they do. Keeva expounds upon the lessons they have learned and enunciates a practical and unified approach to practicing law.

    In each chapter, the author employs lively prose and offers unique insights that deepen and enrich the practice of law. For example, in "The Listening Practice," the author exposes our common deficiencies in listening and recommends exercises to improve our comprehension. As part of becoming a better listener, Keeva helps us identify our prejudices and take corrective action so that they do not interfere with understanding what must be understood. Each chapter offers equally important building blocks that complement one another.

    The author forces readers to embark on a journey of self-discovery, leading to greater awareness, and hopefully culminating in happiness. Lawyers often are fixated on a particular goal, to the detriment of achieving true satisfaction. The lesson of this book is to leave behind such narrowmindedness to fully appreciate the wonder that surrounds us every day.

    Jason T. Studinski, U.W. 1998, is the founding member of Studinski Legal Group LLC, Madison. He practices plaintiff's employment, civil rights, and personal injury law.

    The Appearance of Equality

    By Christopher M. Burke
    (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999).
    224 pgs. $59.95. Order, (800) 225-5800.

    Reviewed by Charles Crueger

    The U.S. Supreme Court's redistricting cases dealing with attempts to benefit a specific minority group through "racial gerrymandering" under the Voting Rights Act are among the most controversial on its docket today. One reason for the controversy is that these cases are so theoretically complex - they address issues of racial equality and what fair representation means in a liberal democracy - that people are bound to disagree no matter what the result. Another reason is that these cases touch a raw nerve in our society because they reflect our lingering racial divisions and tensions and remind us that only recently the law denied some citizens the liberties enjoyed by others on the basis of race.

    The Appearance of Equality attempts to "describe and undo" (the author's term) various theories about fair representation justifying Supreme Court redistricting opinions. On this, the author does a good job. First, Burke describes the various liberal and communitarian conceptions of fair representation (communitarian conceptions focus on the social nature of life and emphasize the embodied status of the individual person in society, while liberal conceptions focus on the abstract civil and political rights of individuals). Burke then explains how these conceptions need not be mutually exclusive or antagonistic, and shows how the Justices rely on both conceptions to argue their respective positions. In short, Burke lays out an interesting analysis of the Court's redistricting opinions.

    Yet for all this, Burke never steps beyond dissecting the Court's opinions to develop a legal theory on fair representation and equality. He never expresses a firm opinion on how the law, and therefore the Court, ought to approach the redistricting cases. Instead, he simply states at the outset that there is no such thing as fair representation, and apparently, as the title suggests, concludes that there is no "correct" outcome in these cases. This is an untenable position, for legal argument in all hard cases turns on contested conceptions of abstract rights and principles; and it is the judge's duty to discover what the rights of the parties are in our constitutional scheme of government. But, by avoiding the issue of what conception of fair representation is a more satisfactory elaboration of the general idea of equality - the hard issue at the heart of the redistricting cases - Burke does not challenge readers to evaluate their own views about the issue, and thus the book adds little to the fair representation debate.

    This is a pity. Burke obviously has read widely and thought deeply about the redistricting cases. One cannot help but conclude that, if he so chose, Burke could have constructed a rigorous theory of fair representation that would at least challenge readers to think harder about their own conceptions on equality and racial gerrymandering.

    Charles Crueger, U.W. 1997, is a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

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