Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School, gave the commencement address at Atlanta’s John Marshall School of Law.  He discussed two types of law: Inc. law and the law of real people.  Inc. law, for the most part, works.  The law of real people, however, does not have such a great track record.  Many of you are working on the legal problems of real people this summer, and you probably see the challenges the system creates.  As Professor Lessig notes, it is the duty of lawyers to fix the system.

I’m sure this seems like a daunting task.  It may also be the case that although you have individual examples of injustice you can point to, it is difficult to put the larger issue into context.  The library has many books that discuss the problems related to the law of real people.  For those of you working in criminal law this summer, we have two new titles that may be of interest to you: Confessions of Guilt: From Torture to Miranda and Beyond (Annex HV8073.3 .T46 2012) and Do the Crime, Do the Time: Juvenile Criminals and Adult Justice in the American Court System (Annex KF9794 M393 2012).