"America's Lawyer-Presidents"

Since the founding of the republic, lawyers have played an instrumental role in our civic life, including 25 who have served as president of the United States. A companion book to the exhibit, America's Lawyer-Presidents, published by Northwestern University Press and the ABA Museum of Law, offers insights into how legal careers and training affected their presidencies. The book also examines how legal training and practice can affect a president's choices for the United States Supreme Court, for Attorney General and for Solicitor General. America's Lawyer-Presidents addresses these issues through fascinating articles and analysis.

America's Lawyer-Presidents is available through major book outlets and can be ordered online through the ABA Museum of Law. Special discounts are available to ABA members.

Praise for "America's Lawyer-Presidents"

"Twenty-five of the United States' forty-three presidents have been lawyers, and yet their careers as attorneys have tended to receive scant attention when compared to their political lives, even though the training and activity of these men as lawyers often contributed deeply to their views on American institutions. America's Lawyer-Presidents, which is the work of an impressive assembly of respected scholars, is lucid, informative, and highly engaging. The book provides intriguing biographical perspectives on the professional lives of a number of our most influential citizens, and also demonstrates yet again the profound relationship between the development of American law and our democracy." —Scott Turow

"Edited by the director of the American Bar Association's Museum of Law, this volume provides useful essays on each of America's 25 'lawyer presidents,' among them Jefferson, both Adamses, Monroe, Lincoln, McKinley, Taft, Wilson, FDR, Nixon and Clinton. As this profusely illustrated volume demonstrates, each man was unique in what he brought to the law, what he took from the law and the extent to which he allowed his legal training to influence and inform executive policy." —Publishers Weekly

"Biographies of presidents tend to emphasize their political and personal lives, rather than their professional careers. This book, which accompanies a traveling exhibit, a website, and a series of special programs, helps to fill this informational gap. [T]his is a worthy and insightful appraisal of the relationship between the legal profession and the presidency. It is a welcome addition to the scholar's bookcase and the general reader's coffee table." —Foreword