Rhetorical Processes and Legal Judgments

Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science and Associate Dean of the Faculty at Amherst College, Massachusetts and Justice Hugo L. Black Senior Faculty Scholar at the University of Alabama School of Law. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including the recent A World without Privacy (2014), Civility, Legality, and the Limits of Justice (2014), and Re-imagining To Kill a Mockingbird: Family, Community, and the Possibility of Equal Justice under Law (2013). His book When Government Breaks the Law: Prosecuting the Bush Administration was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Huffington Post.

The relevance of rhetoric: an introduction Austin Sarat; 1. From 'equality before the law' to 'separate but equal': legal rhetoric, legal history and Roberts v. Boston (1849) Eric Slauter; 2. The civlizing hand of law: defending the legal process in the civil rights era Christopher W. Schmidt; 3. The evolving rhetoric of gay rights and same-sex marriage debate Teresa Godwin Phelps; 4. The rhetoric of precedent Bernadette Meyler; 5. Alternative perspectives on legal rhetoric: persuasion, invitation and argument Linda L. Berger; Afterword. Use your words: rhetoric as absence of law, rhetoric as essence of law Adam Steinman.