“The way in which Professors Stefancic and Delgado approach the problem of lawyer misery is certainly intriguing and has merit. By framing their thesis around the story of the lives and work of Pound and MacLeish, Professors Stefancic and Delgado open yet another window into an important subject and pose a question that will likely resonate with many frustrated humanists who also happen to practice law.” - Theresa M Beiner, Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
"[How Lawyers Lose Their Way] is particularly well and entertainingly written: the narrative of Pound’s and MacLeish’s relationship is as fascinating as the discussion of formalism is enlightening. The book certainly belongs on all legal academic library shelves, and quite honestly, belongs on the shelves of most attorneys I know." - Brian Flaherty, Bimonthly Review of Law Books
"[E]xcellent, nuanced accounts of the conflicted lives of high level lawyers. . . . [It does] much to advance our understanding of the stress and ethical conflicts confronting successful corporate lawyers." - Michael Rustad, University of Illinois Law Review
"[P]rovocative. . . . Recommended." - M.W. Bowers, Choice
"Part I makes an original and engaging move, a dual biography about the interwoven lives of Archibald MacLeish and Ezra Pound. . . . I would not be surprised to find this book in many undergraduate and law school courses. For a course on legal practice its value is easy. For an undergraduate judicial process course, it has the advantages of brevity, affordability, and a human interest. If you teach 'black letter' formalism as a competing theory to behavioral and institutional models of judicial decision-making, and if you also include a unit on the legal profession in your course, this book neatly bridges those topics in intriguing ways. The problems of lawyers are laid out in depressing detail, and this critical perspective will generate much thought." - Patrick Schmidt, Law and Politics Book Review
"This is a highly worthwhile and creative book, one that goes well beyond the usual analysis of what has gone wrong with the legal profession." - Steven Keeva, ABAJournal
"This small book . . . is important because it treats one subject that is vital to all readers of this journal." - Ronald Goldfarb, Washington Lawyer
“Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado offer an innovative approach to integrating a great career in the law with an examined, moral life. The authors make profound connections between law and literature, scholarship and practice, and the personal and the political. The book is an exciting combination of a self-help manual and cutting-edge scholarship. Stefancic and Delgado write with the insight and creativity that they will certainly inspire in lawyers and others who choose careers hoping both to live well and to do some good in this world.” - Paul Butler, George Washington University Law School
“Through the correspondence between the poet-lawyer-statesman Archibald MacLeish and the poet–modernist master Ezra Pound, Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado brilliantly give expression to one of American law’s central metaphors: our lawyers who have lost their way.” - Lawrence Joseph, St. John’s University School of Law and author of Before Our Eyes, a book of poetry
