Abstract
Deborah Rhode is a highly acclaimed scholar and a distinguished public servant. Prolific in both academic scholarship and popular commentary, she is the author of numerous books, articles, and essays on the law and the legal profession. In an important convergence of her roles as a scholar and a public intellectual, Rhode recently returned to the subject of the profession in a new book titled In the Interests of Justice: Reforming the Legal Profession. Like her prior work, In the Interests of Justice profoundly enriches the discourse of ethics and professionalism. Equally important, taken as part of a larger normative enterprise, it inspires others to pursue justice-seeking projects.
For many, the subject of contemporary justice in American law at the hands of its heralded profession might prove a daunting project. Yet, for Rhode, the subject affords an opportunity to enlarge a body of scholarship already stunning in its breadth and virtuosity. Rhode's scholarship engages two main fields of study: equality and gender, and ethics and professionalism. In the Interests of Justice addresses primarily the latter. Rooted in interdisciplinary literature, its genealogy combines multifarious antecedents. On the politics of law and ethics, the book garners from the work of Richard Abel, Robert Gordon, William Simon, and David Wilkins. On gender in law and the profession, it culls from the research of Barbara Babcock and Judith Resnik. On judgment and the neo-classical lawyer, it draws upon the writing of Anthony Kronman. And in philosophy, it winnows from the texts of David Luban.
This essay takes up Rhode's premise of a core public interest in American law and society, and seeks to join that interest to identity and community-based reform movements. The essay is divided into three parts. Part I parses In the Interests of Justice for its guiding principles of reform. Part H links race and reform to the criminal justice system, specifically with respect to the prosecution and defense of racial violence. Part III connects identity and community to lawyer-engineered reform strategies.
