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Antiphon the Athenian
Oratory, Law, and Justice in the Age of the Sophists
By Michael Gagarin
University of Texas Press, 2002

Winner, Friends of the Dallas Public Library Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, 2003

Antiphon was a fifth-century Athenian intellectual (ca. 480-411 BCE) who created the profession of speechwriting while serving as an influential and highly sought-out adviser to litigants in the Athenian courts. Three of his speeches are preserved, together with three sets of Tetralogies (four hypothetical paired speeches), whose authenticity is sometimes doubted. Fragments also survive of intellectual treatises on subjects including justice, law, and nature (physis), which are often attributed to a separate Antiphon the Sophist. Were these two Antiphons really one and the same individual, endowed with a wide-ranging mind ready to tackle most of the diverse intellectual interests of his day?

Through an analysis of all these writings, this book convincingly argues that they were composed by a single individual, Antiphon the Athenian. Michael Gagarin sets close readings of individual works within a wider discussion of the fifth-century Athenian intellectual climate and the philosophical ferment known as the sophistic movement. This enables him to demonstrate the overall coherence of Antiphon's interests and writings and to show how he was a pivotal figure between the sophists and the Attic orators of the fourth century. In addition, Gagarin's argument allows us to reassess the work of the sophists as a whole, so that they can now be seen as primarily interested in logos (speech, argument) and as precursors of fourth-century rhetoric, rather than in their usual role as foils for Plato.

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Attorney for the Damned
Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom
Clarence Darrow
University of Chicago Press, 2012
A famous defender of the underdog, the oppressed, and the powerless, Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) is one of the true legends of the American legal system. His cases were many and various, but all were marked by his unequivocal sense of justice, as well as his penchant for representing infamous and unpopular clients, such as the Chicago thrill killers Leopold and Loeb; Ossian Sweet, the African American doctor charged with murder after fighting off a violent, white mob in Detroit; and John T. Scopes, the teacher on trial in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial.
Published for the first time in 1957, Attorney for the Damned collects Darrow’s most influential summations and supplements them with scene-setting explanations and comprehensive notes by Arthur Weinberg. Darrow confronts issues that remain relevant over half a century after his death: First Amendment rights, capital punishment, and the separation of church and state. With an insightful forward by Justice William O. Douglas, this volume serves as a powerful reminder of Darrow’s relevance today.

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Communication and Litigation
Case Studies of Famous Trials
Janice Schuetz
Southern Illinois University Press, 1988

Examination of seven famous trials, each concluding with an evaluation of the trial by a lawyer, judge, law professor, or communication scholar.

The Washington Post coverage of the John Hinckley case preceding the trial demonstrates the effects media may have on a trial. The Haymarket riot trial serves as an example of opening statements in a storytelling form.

By analyzing the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Schuetz and Snedaker explain direct examination according to its purpose, legal rules, ordering of witnesses, verbal and nonverbal techniques of interrogation, and tactics for introducing evidence.

The cross-examination in the Sacco-Vanzetti case shows how advocates enhance or decrease their persuasiveness by adopting communication maneuvers. Closing arguments in the Rosenberg trial took the form of a refutative story with a dual persuasive and instructional content.

The Supreme Court appeal in the Sam Sheppard case demonstrates the procedures, form, content, and style of arguments of appellate briefs. The Chicago Eight trial is an example of trial as theatre.

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Genos Dikanikon
Amateur and Professional Speech in the Courtrooms of Classical Athens
Victor Bers
Harvard University Press, 2009
Under the Athenian democracy, litigants were expected to speak for themselves, though they could memorize a speech written for them. The texts of about one hundred judicial speeches of the genos dikanikon (the forensic genre) have survived, all attributed to Demosthenes or another of the ten writers of canonical status. These professionals wrote either for themselves or members of a small elite. Victor Bers argues that men too poor to afford a professionally written speech frequently spoke before judicial bodies in procedures crucial to their status, wealth, or even their lives, and that these amateur performances often manifested an unmanly yielding to emotions of anger or fear; professional speech, Bers seeks to demonstrate, was to a large degree crafted in reaction to amateur stumbling.
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A Good Quarrel
America's Top Legal Reporters Share Stories from Inside the Supreme Court
Timothy R. Johnson and Jerry Goldman, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2009

While reading what top legal reporters say about some of the most important U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in recent history, go to this website to listen to audio and hear for yourself the very style and delivery of the oral arguments that have shaped the history of our nation's highest law. See Preface for full instructions.

Contributors

  • Charles Bierbauer, CNN
  • Lyle Denniston, scotusblog.com
  • Fred Graham, Court TV
  • Brent Kendall, Los Angeles Daily Journal
  • Steve Lash, Houston Chronicle
  • Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.com
  • Tony Mauro, American Lawyer Media
  • Tim O'Brien, ABC News
  • David Savage, Los Angeles Times
  • Greg Stohr, Bloomberg News
  • Nina Totenberg, NPR

Timothy R. Johnson teaches in the Department of Political Science and the Law School at the University of Minnesota.

Jerry Goldman teaches political science at Northwestern University and directs the OYEZ Project, a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court, at www.oyez.org.

Cover sketch by Dana Verkouteren

"Supreme Court oral arguments are good government in action. A Good Quarrel brilliantly showcases this important aspect of the Court's work."
---Paul Clement, Partner, King & Spalding, and former United States Solicitor General

"Few legal experiences are as exhilarating as a Supreme Court oral argument---a unique art form that this superb collection brings vividly to life."
---Kathleen Sullivan, Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver and Hedges, and former Dean, Stanford Law School

"[A Good Quarrel] shines a brilliant spotlight on the pivotal moment of advocacy when the Supreme Court confronts the nation's most profound legal questions."
---Thomas C. Goldstein, Partner, Akin Gump, and Lecturer, Supreme Court Litigation, Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School

"A brilliant way to understand America's most important mysterious institution."
---Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School

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Isaeus
Translated with an introduction by Michael Edwards
University of Texas Press, 2007

This is the eleventh volume in the Oratory of Classical Greece. This series presents all of the surviving speeches from the late fifth and fourth centuries BC in new translations prepared by classical scholars who are at the forefront of the discipline. These translations are especially designed for the needs and interests of today's undergraduates, Greekless scholars in other disciplines, and the general public.

Classical oratory is an invaluable resource for the study of ancient Greek life and culture. The speeches offer evidence on Greek moral views, social and economic conditions, political and social ideology, law and legal procedure, and other aspects of Athenian culture that have recently been attracting particular interest: women and family life, slavery, and religion, to name just a few.

The orator Isaeus lived during the fourth century BC and was said to be the teacher of Demosthenes, Athens' most famous orator. Of the fifty or more speeches he is believed to have written, eleven survive in whole, one as a large fragment, and others as smaller fragments. This volume presents all the surviving works of Isaeus. The speeches mainly deal with inheritances and are a vital source of information regarding Greek law in this important area. In addition to translating the speeches, Michael Edwards provides a general introduction to Isaeus and Athenian inheritance law, as well as specific introductions and notes for each speech.

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Oral Arguments and Coalition Formation on the U.S. Supreme Court
A Deliberate Dialogue
Ryan C. Black, Timothy R. Johnson, and Justin Wedeking
University of Michigan Press, 2014

The U.S. Supreme Court, with its controlled, highly institutionalized decision-making practices, provides an ideal environment for studying coalition formation. The process begins during the oral argument stage, which provides the justices with their first opportunity to hear one another's attitudes and concerns specific to a case. This information gathering allows them eventually to form a coalition.

In order to uncover the workings of this process, the authors analyze oral argument transcripts from every case decided from 1998 through 2007 as well as the complete collection of notes kept during oral arguments by Justice Lewis F. Powell and Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Both justices clearly monitored their fellow justices' participation in the discussion and used their observations to craft opinions their colleagues would be likely to support. This study represents a major step forward in the understanding of coalition formation, which is a crucial aspect of many areas of political debate and decision making.

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The Rhetoric of Seeing in Attic Forensic Oratory
By Peter A. O'Connell
University of Texas Press, 2017

In ancient Athenian courts of law, litigants presented their cases before juries of several hundred citizens. Their speeches effectively constituted performances that used the speakers’ appearances, gestures, tones of voice, and emotional appeals as much as their words to persuade the jury. Today, all that remains of Attic forensic speeches from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE are written texts, but, as Peter A. O’Connell convincingly demonstrates in this innovative book, a careful study of the speeches’ rhetoric of seeing can bring their performative aspect to life.

Offering new interpretations of a wide range of Athenian forensic speeches, including detailed discussions of Demosthenes’ On the False Embassy, Aeschines’ Against Ktesiphon, and Lysias’ Against Andocides, O’Connell shows how litigants turned the jurors’ scrutiny to their advantage by manipulating their sense of sight. He analyzes how the litigants’ words work together with their movements and physical appearance, how they exploit the Athenian preference for visual evidence through the language of seeing and showing, and how they plant images in their jurors’ minds. These findings, which draw on ancient rhetorical theories about performance, seeing, and knowledge as well as modern legal discourse analysis, deepen our understanding of Athenian notions of visuality. They also uncover parallels among forensic, medical, sophistic, and historiographic discourses that reflect a shared concern with how listeners come to know what they have not seen.

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Speeches from Athenian Law
Edited by Michael Gagarin
University of Texas Press, 2011

This is the sixteenth volume in the Oratory of Classical Greece. This series presents all of the surviving speeches from the late fifth and fourth centuries BC in new translations prepared by classical scholars who are at the forefront of the discipline. These translations are especially designed for the needs and interests of today's undergraduates, Greekless scholars in other disciplines, and the general public.

Classical oratory is an invaluable resource for the study of ancient Greek life and culture. The speeches offer evidence on Greek moral views, social and economic conditions, political and social ideology, law and legal procedure, and other aspects of Athenian culture that have recently been attracting particular interest: women and family life, slavery, and religion, to name just a few.

This volume assembles twenty-two speeches previously published in the Oratory series. The speeches are taken from a wide range of different kinds of cases—homicide, assault, commercial law, civic status, sexual offenses, and others—and include many of the best-known speeches in these areas. They are Antiphon, Speeches 1, 2, 5, and 6; Lysias 1, 3, 23, 24, and 32; Isocrates 17, 20; Isaeus 1, 7, 8; Hyperides 3; Demosthenes 27, 35, 54, 55, 57, and 59; and Aeschines 1. The volume is intended primarily for use in teaching courses in Greek law or related areas such as Greek history. It also provides the introductions and notes that originally accompanied the individual speeches, revised slightly to shift the focus onto law.

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