Dedicated to celebrating the importance of law in U.S. life, the 19 stories collected in this volume are about legislators who enact the law, judges who interpret it, and lawyers who practice it. The stories describe the contributions to the United States through the law of distinguished individuals, emphasizing the devotion of many lawyers to public service. The stories also explain landmark court cases that helped build, extend, and solidify the U.S. tradition of legal rights and responsibilities. The stories examine a wide variety of subjects, including: Pauli Murray's efforts to safeguard the civil rights of her fellow African Americans; Clarence Gideon's and Abe Fortas's struggle for the right to a free attorney for poor persons accused of a felony; the delayed acknowledgment of the constitutional rights of interned Japanese-Americans; Thomas Jefferson's brilliance as a young lawyer; the judicial and legislative efforts of Native Americans on behalf of their free exercise of religion; Thurgood Marshall's role the cessation of school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education; the Supreme Court's elaboration of the "exclusionary rule" as a measure to safeguard to Fourth Amendment's protection of citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg's fight against sexual discrimination and her elevation to the Supreme Court. (LH)