America's lawyer-presidents : from law office to Oval Office / edited by Norman Gross ; foreword by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [331]-334) and index.

Foreword / Sandra Day O'Connor -- Preface / James R. Silkenat and Robert A. Stein -- Introduction / Norman Gross -- Law in colonial America / Lawrence M. Friedman -- John Adams : patriot lawyer / L. Kinvin Wroth -- Thomas Jefferson : legal wordsmith / David T. Konig -- James Monroe : occasional lawyer / Daniel Preston -- John Quincy Adams : eloquent advocate / Howard Jones -- Law in antebellum America / Lawrence M. Friedman -- Andrew Jackson : frontier justice / David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler -- Martin van Buren : boy lawyer / James A. Henretta -- John Tyler : Virginia counsel / E. Lee Shepard -- James K. Polk : sometime lawyer / Robert W. Johannsen -- Millard Fillmore : lawyer mentor / Elbert B. Smith -- Franklin Pierce : courtroom orator / Christopher M. Johnson -- James Buchanan : strict constructionist / Jean H. Baker -- Abraham Lincoln : prairie lawyer / Paul Finkelman -- Selected cases of A. Lincoln, Esq., attorney and counsellor-at-law / John A. Lupton -- Lincoln's notes for a law lecture -- Law in the gilded age / Lawrence M. Friedman -- Rutherford B. Hayes : volunteer counsel / Ari Hoogenboom -- James A. Garfield : Supreme Court counsel / Allan Peskin -- Chester A. Arthur : war claims lawyer / Thomas C. Reeves -- Grover Cleveland : an honest lawyer / Eugene C. Gerhart -- Benjamin Harrison : high-priced counsel / Allen Sharp -- William McKinley : a good lawyer / Lewis L. Gould -- Law in the new century / Lawrence M. Friedman -- William Howard Taft : Mr. Chief Justice / Melvyn Dubofsky -- Woodrow Wilson : reluctant lawyer / Melvin I. Urofsky -- Calvin Coolidge : country lawyer / Russell Fowler -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt : contrarian counselor / Jerome J. Shestack -- Law in modern America / Lawrence M. Friedman -- Richard M. Nixon : bicoastal practitioner / Irwin F. Gellman -- Gerald R. Ford : all-American counsel / David Horrocks -- William Jefferson Clinton : political lawyer / David H. Bennett -- Lawyer-presidents and their Supreme Court appointments / Barbara A. Perry -- Lawyer-presidents and their attorneys (general) / Cornell W. Clayton.

"America's Lawyer-Presidents sheds light on the legal backgrounds of chief executives and describes how their experiences as lawyers affected and shaped their presidencies. Written by historians and presidential scholars and highlighted by photos, illustrations, and sidebars, America's Lawyer-Presidents provides new insights into our national leader and their lives and times from colonial days to the present."--BOOK JACKET.