There are currently 890,000 lawyers in America---and that number, despite the Great Recession, keeps going up.  But why are there so many, where did they come from, and what role have they played in history.  R. Blain Andrus’ new book, Lawyer: A Brief 5,000 Year History (ABA Press) is a hysterical, scholarly look at the history of lawyers and not just from an external perspective: it puts you inside their heads.

Starting from biblical times with the case of Adam and Eve vs. The State of Innocence, through Sumer, Babylon, ancient Greece, Rome and medieval Europe, through Jefferson, Webster, Lincoln, Darrow and the O.J. Simpson case, the book provides the reader with a good sense of the “primal ooze” that gave rise to the first lawyer and the religious, cultural, philosophical, economic and political forces that have preserved lawyers from extinction---at least so far.

As stated by Professor Stanley N. Katz of Princeton University: “Andrus leads us on a lightning fast tour of the history of lawyers over the past five millennia.  We touchdown briefly in every major Western civilization of the past 5,000 years, and glimpse both law and lawyer in each.  If you have never heard of Ur-Nammu or the Big Pig (I’m not telling!), this is the book for you.”