WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL?: THE NATURE OF THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM by Michael Ross Fowler. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1998. 328 pp. Paper $41.00. ISBN 0-13-618349-2.

Reviewed by James W. Govert, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, University of California at Berkeley. Email: jgovert@uclink4.berkeley.edu.

 In time-honored Socratic fashion, Professor Fowler never directly answers the title question of his introductory text on the American legal system, WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? Instead, in his preface and at the beginning of each chapter, he provides a series of questions that invite the reader to conduct his or her own inquiry with respect to a particular aspect of the American legal system. As a guide to this additional research, each chapter closes with a list of sources that delve more deeply into the organizing questions. Sandwiched between the invitation to study and the additional resources, each chapter also provides the more practically motivated reader with sufficient fact and description to identify the rudimentary elements of the American legal system and understand current issues and controversies. In each chapter, the scholarly bent of the organizing questions and additional research sources is offset nicely by a wealth of practical description and factual material. WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? successfully blends the Socratic method of the classroom with "nuts and bolts" focus of the law office. The result is a clear and useful introduction to American law and courts that achieves a admirable balance between the concerns of the legal scholar and those of the practicing attorney.

A chapter-by-chapter description of WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? illustrates this balance between theory and practice. Part I introduces the American legal system and its primary institution, the court. Fowler sketches a brief history of legal developments in the United States in Chapter One, alternating between scholarly historical material and practical (if somewhat idealized) "day-in-the-life" descriptions of a hypothetical attorney. He employs the same approach in Chapter Two to describe courts of all levels and their jurisdictions, ranging from an abstract discussion of dual federalism in American courts to a concrete description of courts that covers the United States Supreme Court, municipal traffic court and everything in between. Part II introduces the key participants in the legal system: Chapter Three covers the judge, Chapter Four the lawyer, Chapter Five the jury, and Chapter Six the police. In each of these chapters, a densely factual account of each player precedes a catalogue of relevant commentary and evaluation. Part III looks at the actual function of the adversarial system, examining criminal proceedings in Chapter Seven and civil actions in Chapter Eight. Again, the factual exposition of procedure precedes a discussion assessing its pros and cons. Finally, Part IV suggest ways to evaluate the legal system, covering the training and regulation of lawyers in Chapter Nine and offering broad outline of certain features of the American legal system (both positive and negative) in Chapter Ten.

In keeping with the introductory nature of his text, Fowler’s language throughout the book is straightforward and conversational. The tone and the Socratic trappings reflect the book’s roots in a series of lectures given by Professor Fowler while he was a Fulbright Scholar at the College of Law and Letters of the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan. Fowler’s own policy leanings are largely unobserved, although he does indicate that the process of comparing the American system with others may provide avenues of legal reform (p. 306). Even though a good deal of material has apparently been added to the original lectures, unnecessary legal jargon is mercifully absent from Fowler’s writing. Indeed, the only sustained "legalese" in WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? appears at the end of the volume – but then only as an entry in the handy twenty-page glossary! (p.320). The glossary includes nearly all of the specialized legal terms used in the text and should prove a boon to the first-time student.

Two real strengths of WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? are its (i) attention to comparative material and (ii) inclusion of the perspective of a practicing attorney. Fowler goes out of his way to show how features of the American legal system might be profitably compared to the characteristics of other legal systems. For example, he not only touches on the relatively well-known difference between adversarial and inquisitorial systems (pp. 8-10), he also notes lesser known items such as procedural differences in the use of common legal devices such as the jury (pp.157-58). He further expands his scope to include broad social divergence among nations that affect the legal system in areas such as crime rates (p.162). Fowler also offer insight from his own experiences (and those of others) as a practitioner that illuminate the workings of the legal system far more effectively than the relatively dry facts. In particular, his account of corralling an uncooperative witness during the discovery process (pp. 245-46) and his description of the lifestyle pathologies that seem to afflict so many lawyers (pp. 124-127) provide a sobering "insider’s" view of legal practice. By including both comparative analysis and the "war stories" of the practitioner, Fowler adds depth and immediacy to his various assessments of the American legal system.

As Fowler correctly notes, " in an introductory text many important matters will be dealt with in a cursory fashion or omitted altogether." (p. xi). Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the one notable omission in WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? is its inattention to the lawmaking process. For the bulk of the book, the law is a fixed quantity – something that judges apply, lawyers twist, juries ignore and policemen enforce, but that all do little to change. While Fowler does recognize the lawmaking capacity of judges at the appeals court level (pp.90-94), the dominant sources of modern law – legislatures and regulatory agencies – are not really treated as such. For example, when Fowler references legislatures in discussions of criminal sentencing and judicial review (pp. 76-78), the lawmaking has already occurred and either constrains judicial behavior (e.g., through mandatory minimums) or does not (e.g., through invalidation as unconstitutional). Similarly the primary discussion of regulatory agencies (pp. 257-59) focuses on adjudicative procedures and leaves out the rulemaking processes. Fowler emphasizes how agencies apply pre-existing regulations, not how they create these regulations in the first place. Given the large number of lawyers making law as members of the federal and various state legislatures and city councils, and their private counterparts in the lobbying and regulatory advice fields who hope to influence such lawmaking, the politics of lawmaking deserves more attention in a book devoted to explicating the fundamental "nature" of the American legal system. While it is certainly too much to ask Fowler to include a full blown account of American politics in an introductory text about the legal system, the personnel and procedures of the federal and state legislatures and bureaucracy should be treated as more than a static background against which the "legal" activities of the judicial branch and its players and procedures are carried out.

In the final analysis, WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? affords professors of political science or legal studies a sound text for an introductory course in the American legal system. As noted earlier, the questions, sources and glossary provide excellent pedagogical tools. The book might also be used as a supplement to a political science course in public law or in a specific policy area significantly affected by judicial policymaking. Above all, the book presents a cogent and concise explanation of how the courts work. For more advanced coursework, the references provided at the end of each chapter provide syllabus ideas for the professor and independent study opportunities for the student. A random sampling of some of Fowler’s bibliographic materials reveals a wide range of classics and recent contributions of importance. Armed with the facts and guided by the questions and resources he provides, students of American politics will benefit from a close reading of Fowler’s effort.

Professor Fowler has authored a solid textbook covering the law and courts in the United States. His stated goal, "to draw the reader’s attention to a few fundamental aspects of the legal system ... and to additional sources that may fill in the gaps" (xi), is largely achieved. Although the field is crowded with similar contributions, WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL? should find a secure place among the better introductory textbooks on the American legal system because of its clear writing, conversational tone and effective balance between the scholarly and the practical.

 ****************************************************************