The Story of My Life

Rating:
Summary: Fighting the good fight.
Review: Darrow takes the reader through some of his most famous cases and explains the philosophy with which he approached his career and the law in general. Any reader interested in the history of the period should find his accounts fascinating: Eugene Debs, John P. Altgeld, the MacNamara Case, the Loeb-Leopold murders, and the famous Scopes "monkey trial" case are just some of the points touched upon in the Darrow autobiography.

Darrow is a clean and competent writer, if not an artistic one. The prose is easy to read and understand. In places, the book can get frustrating because he leaves a topic well before the reader has lost interest. Future publishers would do well to publish this book together with some pointers for further reading.

The Da Capo Press edition is published with a very strange little introductory essay by Alan Dershowitz. In it, he seems more interested in rehabilitating the memory of Bryan than he does in introducing the book. The reader may want to skip it until after finishing the main book itself.

Beyond the obvious lawyer/law student audience, I would also recommend this book to readers interested in labor politics, the early history of the 20th century in the US, and social justice.

Rating:
Summary: written in the comfortable style that is darrow's hallmark
Review: definitely an excellent read. for those who have read "clarence darrow for the defence" and enjoyed it, this book may very well make you feel like you are visiting an old friend.

Rating:
Summary: Pessimist by Profession
Review: Interesting for style as well as insight into courtroom tactics, psychology of jurors, crime and muckraking. His basic premise about jurors: If he can get them to imagine, he can get them to doubt. So his approach, always personal, was perpetually appealing to imagination. It worked, mostly, even when clients were guilty. It's his reliance on reason that makes him a skeptic. Causation is the basis of his world and personal views. Seeing the effect of the law, he argues that judging is worse than judgement, and he would dispense with both. He is at some pain to describe what he gave up to plead, rather than the life he gained by it. His seriousness can be attributed to the injustices he saw, effects he attributes more to chance than choice. He espouses the theory of continental drift, in 1939! A sharp mind interested in everything. As he says himself, if he had to do it over, . . . he'd have been a scientist.

Rating:
Summary: Pessimist by Profession
Review: Interesting for style as well as insight into courtroom tactics, psychology of jurors, crime and muckraking. His basic premise about jurors: If he can get them to imagine, he can get them to doubt. So his approach, always personal, was perpetually appealing to imagination. It worked, mostly, even when clients were guilty. It's his reliance on reason that makes him a skeptic. Causation is the basis of his world and personal views. Seeing the effect of the law, he argues that judging is worse than judgement, and he would dispense with both. He is at some pain to describe what he gave up to plead, rather than the life he gained by it. His seriousness can be attributed to the injustices he saw, effects he attributes more to chance than choice. He espouses the theory of continental drift, in 1939! A sharp mind interested in everything. As he says himself, if he had to do it over, . . . he'd have been a scientist.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read Book for Lawyers-Want-to-Be
Review: This book successfully captured the life of Clarence Darrow, who is no doubt one of the greatest attorneys of the early 20th century. His abilities to defend the indefensible are most extrordinary. I will certainly recommend this book to anyone espeically pre-law or law school students.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read Book for Lawyers-Want-to-Be
Review: This book successfully captured the life of Clarence Darrow, who is no doubt one of the greatest attorneys of the early 20th century. His abilities to defend the indefensible are most extrordinary. I will certainly recommend this book to anyone espeically pre-law or law school students.