The Order of the Coif has given its 2014 Book Award to Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms, co-written by Judith Resnik ’75, Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and her husband Dennis Curtis, Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School.
The Order of the Coif is an honor society that aims to “encourage excellence in legal education.” First awarded in 1964, this biennial Book Award honors texts of extraordinary legal scholarship.
Published by Yale University Press in 2011, Representing Justice has already picked up plenty of accolades. The book looks, in part, at the evolution of depictions of Justice—often shown as a blindfolded woman, a sword in one hand and scales in the other—as well as the evolution of the judicial process. The New York Times summed it up as “an academic treatise on threats to the modern judiciary that doubles as an obsessive’s tour of Western art through the lens of the law.” Law and Literature praised the book, calling it “a richly documented study.” The Association of American Publishers gave it the 2011 PROSE Award for Excellence in the Social Sciences, along with the 2011 PROSE Award for Law and Legal Studies. The American Society of Legal Writers honored it with the 2012 Scribes Book Award.
Resnik is the founding director of Yale Law School’s Arthur Liman Public Interest Program and Fund, which supports students interested in public interest and social justice law. She has also co-edited two books: Federal Courts Stories (Foundation Press, 2010) and Migration and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender (NYU Press, 2009). In June 2012, Resnik was Alumna of the Month on the NYU Law website. Norman Dorsen, Frederick I. and Grace A. Stokes Professor of Law, recalled the glowing path of this former Law School student, “Of all the fellows we have had, Judith is without exception the most outstanding scholar that the Hays Program has produced.”
Watch Resnik discuss the book, via Yale Law Librarians on Vimeo:
Posted on November 12, 2013