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USM Professor’s Book Introduces Non-Lawyers to the U.S. Legal System

April 9, 2008

Should television advertising directed toward children be regulated? How does the House Rules Committee have life-or-death power over the fate of each bill? Do you agree that Supreme Court justices should be virtually unremoveable from office?

Those are among the questions raised in “The Dynamics of Law,” (M.E. Sharpe, 2008), a new edition of a book intended for students as well as for public officials and volunteer members of citizen boards who need a concise introduction to, and general understanding of how, the American legal system works.

Using more recent cases and other new materials, co-author and University of Southern Maine Professor Michael S. Hamilton has, in the words of one reviewer, “…revived and updated one of the best introductions to the way law works in this country.”  This fourth edition is based on the work of co-author George W. Spiro, the late professor and associate dean in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. “Michael Hamilton’s stewardship of this new edition,” wrote another reviewer, “is a tribute to a great teacher and to the permanence of great teaching.”

Topics addressed include the nature and function of law; the trial stage; judicial, legislative and administrative lawmaking; and the private contributions to the legal system.

Hamilton, a USM professor of political science specializing in environmental and natural resources policy, is available to discuss the need for a book that introduces the layperson to the workings of the American legal system. His previous book, “Mining Environmental Policy: Comparing Indonesia and the USA” (Ashgate Publishing, 2005) was named the 2006 Best Book of Public Administration Scholarship by the American Society for Public Administration.

Hamilton can be reached at 780-4190, mshamilt@usm.maine.edu or use the contact numbers at the top of this advisory.     

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