Anyone who's ever watched Perry Mason knows that the closing argument is a very important part of a big legal case. The closing argument is the "game point" of law, the time when lawyers pull out all the stops on the cajoling and the litigating. Michael S. Lief and his coauthors have collected the closing arguments from 10 noteworthy cases in this volume, introducing each speech with background information on the trial and commentary on the lawyer's technique. In these pages, readers get front-row seats to some of the most riveting trials in this century, including the Charles Manson murder trial, Karen Silkwood's wrongful-death suit, and the trial of the Chicago Seven.

Because the authors chose to include all the courtroom interruptions in the transcript, the Manson summation makes for especially lively reading. Manson and his codefendants repeatedly spoke out of turn during prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's statement, saying things like "You are going to be eaten up by your own lie" and "Even if I have never been in the Gotham Bank!" Bugliosi's speech is among the most eloquent in the collection, which is why it is so stunning when one of the defendants provokes him so much that he loses his cool and calls her a name that rhymes with rich.

Although the title promises the "greatest closing arguments in modern law," some of the speeches seem to have been chosen because they were connected to important cases rather than because of their own rhetorical merits. However, the cases themselves are interesting, and these transcripts bring them to life better than any summary would. This collection should be of interest to anyone in the legal profession. --Jill Marquis


From Publishers Weekly
In a country where celebrity lawyers are worshipped like divas, it's surprising that until now no one has collected their most glorious arias?the closing arguments of front-page cases. Here Lief (a deputy DA in Ventura, Calif.), Caldwell (a professor of law at Pepperdine University) and Bycel (dean of UWLA School of Law) have assembled the "ten greatest arguments" delivered by American advocates in civil and criminal trials in the last century. Included are some obvious choices: Clarence Darrow's impassioned plea to spare Leopold and Loeb from the gallows; Robert Jackson's magisterial condemnation of Hitler's henchmen at Nuremberg; Gerry Spence's folksy attack on the Kerr-McGee nuclear power plant on behalf of Karen Silkwood; Vincent Bugliosi's methodical devastation of the Manson family. Readers will enjoy second-guessing the editors: Is Donald Re's close in the DeLorean trial "greater" in advocating on behalf of a notorious client than Johnnie Cochran's (overlooked here, as is Daniel Petrocelli)? Is William Kunstler's argument in the Chicago 7 trial "great" or is it merely a famous lawyer's last word in a famous case? Does the snippet of Clara Shortridge Foltz's argument presented here, in which she wittily exposes the opposing counsel's sexism, outrank the close of, say, Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education? Unfortunately, the editors' brief commentaries shed little light on why these particular arguments make their top-10 list. They virtually ignore opposing counsel's arguments, except in the case of My Lai Lieut. William Calley Jr. Repeatedly, they praise the top-10 closures for focusing the evidence and talking "horizontally" to the jury, but surely there's magic unaccounted for. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The authors have pooled their legal and academic expertise for this unique combination of primary-source material, annotation, and commentary gleaned from the oral summations at ten famous American trials. The ten cases chosen for analysis provide all the ingredients for memorable finales: historical relevance, political importance, social significance, and the popular notoriety of the litigants. Each chapter places the verbatim material into a historical, social, and legal context the reader can understand and appreciate. Included in the selection are excerpts from trials that typified the trauma of their times: the 1971 prosecution of Army Lieutenant William Calley Jr. for the massacre of civilians in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai; William Kunstler's spirited defense of the Chicago Seven, accused of conspiracy to disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention; the prosecution of the Mississippi segregationist who assassinated Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers; and Clarence Darrow's 1924 defense of Leopold and Loeb, who had confessed to a cold-blooded thrill killing. The book would satisfy those with a general interest in history or political science; law students and legal practicioners could learn useful rhetorical strategies.APhilip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Lib., First Judicial Dist., New YorkCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Don Franzen
Lawyers and nonlawyers will enjoy the passion and eloquence of these counselors; practitioners of law will find much to learn from them.


Review
Richard Roberts The Indianapolis Star The majesty of the law stands tall in this presentation of the powerful closing arguments in ten of the most dramatic and eventful trials of modern times....Relatively few people were present for their original delivery. Now anyone can revisit them.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

How does the trial advocate manage in just a few hours to summarize months of testimony and documentary evidence, transforming it into a compelling story that will persuade the jurors - and win the case?