About William Domnarski

Longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. Written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. I've been interested in judicial opinions as a literary genre of its own, though my principal interest has been in the role of personality in judging and lawyering.

William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association.

William's website

NBN Episodes hosted by William:

Martin Clark, "The Plinko Bounce" (Rare Bird Books, 2023)

December 22, 2023

The Plinko Bounce

Martin Clark

For seventeen years, small-town public defender Andy Hughes has been underpaid to look after the poor, the addicted, and the unfortunate souls who con…

Aaron Tang, "Supreme Hubris: How Overconfidence Is Destroying the Court--And How We Can Fix It" (Yale UP, 2023)

September 30, 2023

Supreme Hubris

Aaron Tang

Today I talked to Aaron Tang about his new book Supreme Hubris: How Overconfidence Is Destroying the Court--And How We Can Fix It (Yale UP, 2023). Th…

G. Edward White, "Law in American History, Volume III: 1930-2000" (Oxford UP, 2019)

July 2, 2023

Law in American History

G. Edward White
Listen:

For nearly two decades the renowned legal historian G. Edward White has been writing a multi-volume history of law in America. In his third and conclu…

Herman Melville, "Moby-Dick" (Oxford UP, 2022)

November 2, 2022

Moby-Dick

Herman Melville

Today I talked to Hester Blum, editor of a new edition of Moby-Dick (Oxford UP, 2022). "It will be a strange sort of a book, tho', I fear; blubber is…

Robert Steven Levine et al., "The Norton Anthology of American Literature" (Norton, 2022)

October 18, 2022

The Norton Anthology of American Literature

Robert Steven Levine et al.

The Tenth Edition introduces diverse, compelling, relevant texts-from Civil War songs and stories to The Turn of the Screw to The Great Gatsby to poem…

M. Margaret McKeown, "Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas" (Potomac Books, 2022)

October 10, 2022

Citizen Justice

M. Margaret McKeown

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was a giant in the legal world, even if he is often remembered for his four wives, as a potential vice-p…

Kermit Roosevelt III, "The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

September 29, 2022

The Nation That Never Was

Kermit Roosevelt III

There's a common story we tell about America: that our fundamental values as a country were stated in the Declaration of Independence, fought for in t…

David Enrich, "Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice" (Mariner Books, 2022)

September 21, 2022

Servants of the Damned

David Enrich

In his acclaimed #1 bestseller Dark Towers, David Enrich presented the never-before-told saga of how Deutsche Bank became the global face of financial…

Brad Snyder, "Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment" (Norton, 2022)

September 14, 2022

Democratic Justice

Brad Snyder

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter--Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice--is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by O…

Jeffrey S. Sutton, "Who Decides?: States As Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation" (Oxford UP, 2021)

August 10, 2022

Who Decides?

Jeffrey S. Sutton

Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? Who wins the di…

William Ian Miller, "Outrageous Fortune: Gloomy Reflections on Luck and Life" (Oxford UP, 2020)

June 22, 2022

Outrageous Fortune

William Ian Miller

In Outrageous Fortune: Gloomy Reflections on Luck and Life (Oxford UP, 2020), William Ian Miller offers his reflections on the perverse consequences, …

Justin Gautreau, "The Last Word: The Hollywood Novel and the Studio System" (Oxford UP, 2020)

June 21, 2022

The Last Word

Justin Gautreau

Justin Gautreau's book The Last Word: The Hollywood Novel and the Studio System (Oxford UP, 2020) argues that the Hollywood novel opened up space for …

Aziz Z. Huq, "The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies" (Oxford UP, 2021)

June 17, 2022

The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies

Aziz Z. Huq

Just recently, the Supreme Court rejected an argument by plaintiffs that police officers should no longer be protected by the doctrine of qualified im…

Mark V. Tushnet, "The Hughes Court: From Progressivism to Pluralism, 1930 to 1941" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

May 11, 2022

The Hughes Court

Mark V. Tushnet

Mark V. Tushnet's book The Hughes Court: From Progressivism to Pluralism, 1930 to 1941 (Cambridge UP, 2022) describes the closing of one era in consti…

Ernest Hemingway, "The Sun Also Rises: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism" (Norton, 2022)

April 22, 2022

The Sun Also Rises

Michael Thurston (editor)

“Finally, the first of Norton’s long-awaited treatments of Ernest Hemingway, the American who, more than anyone, changed the look and sound of modern …

Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright, 2020)

March 11, 2022

The Saddest Words

Michael Gorra

William Faulkner, one of America's most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such …

Melvin I. Urofsky, "Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue" (Vintage, 2017)

March 11, 2022

Dissent and the Supreme Court

Melvin I. Urofsky

In his major work, Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue (Vintage, 2017), acclaimed …

Mary Norris, "Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen" (Norton, 2020)

February 22, 2022

Greek to Me

Mary Norris

Mary Norris, The New Yorker's Comma Queen and best-selling author of Between You & Me, has had a lifelong love affair with words. In Greek to Me: Adve…

Linda Greenhouse, "Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court" (Random House, 2021)

January 26, 2022

Justice on the Brink

Linda Greenhouse

At the end of the Supreme Court's 2019-20 term, the center was holding. The predictions that the court would move irrevocably to the far right hadn't …