Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer

Trial and Error offers an unexpurgated examination of the past half-century of American jurisprudence through the life of one of America's most celebrated and accomplished lawyers. Here is John C. Tucker, a man who twice argued before the Supreme Court and won, challenged the nefarious and discriminatory practice of "contract lending" and lost, participated in such monumental cases as the Chicago Eight trial following the calamitous 1968 Democratic Convention—and retired at age fifty-one, securely established as one of the most respected jurists of his generation. In Trial and Error, he describes with poise and wit his encounters with as varied a cast of characters as Muhammad Ali, Abbie Hoffman, and Chief Justice Earl Warren, while chronicling the remarkable successes, and sobering disappointments, of his distinguished career. This is an honest and uncompromising analysis of the events that have shaped our court system, and the inspiring story of a man for principle in an increasingly unprincipled age for the legal profession.