The Judges; A Penetrating Exploration of American Courts and of the New Decisions--Hard Decisions--They Must Make for a New Millennium

New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2007. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [12], 450 pages. Inscribed on the fep to an individual, with a dated comment, by the author. Book includes fifteen chapters, Notes, Acknowledgments, and an Index. Martin Prager Mayer (January 14, 1928 - August 1, 2019) was the writer of 35 non-fiction books, including Madison Avenue, U.S.A. (1958), The Schools (1961), The Lawyers (1967), About Television (1972), The Bankers (1975), The Builders (1978), Risky Business: The Collapse of Lloyd's of London (1995), The Bankers: The Next Generation (1997), The Fed (2001), and The Judges (2005). Mayer's books describe and criticize American industries or professional groups. His book on Madison Avenue was described by Cleveland Amory as "The first complete story on the ... advertising industry". He was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. The author argues that a specialized world demands specialized courts and judges expert in the subjects they much consider. Following the leadership of Chief Judge Judith Kaye of New York's highest court, the Conference of Chief Justices from all fifty states has endorsed her use of "Problem-solving courts" to take the judiciary into the twenty-first century. Derived from a Kirkus review: A brief history, a current assessment and, finally, a plea for reform of America's courts. Alexander Hamilton was, perhaps, never more wrong than when he characterized the court system as "the least dangerous branch" of the proposed new American government. Over the past 200 years, the courts have emerged to an astonishing extent as the final arbiters of the rights and duties attendant to our democracy. With this authority comes an enormous capacity for mischief. Who are these people who wield such great power, these judges, some 30,000 of them, who handle 92-million cases a year? Mayer answers this question and much more. He insists on examining the federal, state and county court system as it is: overburdened, understaffed, out-moded and thoroughly unprepared to address the problems of the 21st century. Intended for the general reader, his well-reported, informed narrative identifies our adherence to lofty myth and politicization of the courts as the chief obstacles to reform. Interpolated throughout are chapters devoted to specialty courts that appear to work well-the federal tax court, the so-called "therapy" drug court in Brooklyn, the Colorado water courts-and these vignettes prepare the reader for Mayer's proposed remedy. No honest observer of our courts at work can wholly approve of them. He argues, we are long past the time when our disputes ought be handed over to those who owe their robes to political activity. Writing from a frankly disclosed center-left perspective, he insists that we do more to protect the independence of the judiciary, increase efforts to educate and train judges to judge-quite a different thing from training lawyers to advocate-and move increasingly in the direction of problem-solving, specialty courts, familiar with the discourse of other learned professions.