- Maria Iacobo
Several USC Law faculty are contributors to a recently published book identifying key individuals who have had a lasting impact on American law. The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law is the first book to collect concise biographies of the most important men and women who have reflected, executed, explained or expanded on the American legal system.
More than 700 individuals – from the colonial era to the present day – are profiled for their significant and lasting influence on American law. Five current or former USC Law faculty – Erwin Chemerinsky, Howard Gilman, Larry Simon, John Tomlinson and Robert Thompson – contributed biographies that illustrate the wide ideological spectrum as well as diversity of key legal figures.
USC Law historian John Tomlinson wrote a biography on Loren B. Miller, an African American civil rights lawyer who practiced in the mid-20th century and was involved in more than 100 cases that sought to eradicate the restrictive covenants that barred African Americans from the purchase, use and sale of property.
Prof. Howard Gilman profiled Stephen J. Field, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice in the latter half of the 19th century whose appointment to the court came during the Civil War, after Congress expanded the court’s size to ten.
The book was chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by Choice magazine and named one of the best reference works of 2009 by Library Journal.
Read more about the book at: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300113006
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