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The New Deal Lawyers

This report is a review of Peter Irons' The New Deal Lawyers. The book is a well documented and fascinating account of the influential role played by a relatively small group of young lawyers, graduates mostly of the leading Ivy League law schools, and their mentors in reshaping the institutions of the federal government during the first four years of the New Deal (1933-1937) and in establishing the legal foundations of the modern American regulatory state. Irons' main focus is on their role as drafters of laws and regulations, as legal enforcers and as advocates for reform during the great battle which ensued to reshape constitutional law to accommodate the political objectives of the New Deal.

An important subtheme is their personal struggles to achieve professional identity and to satisfy their career ambitions amid the turmoil of the early New Deal, their conflicts with their political bosses, inter-agency jurisdictional rivalries and conflicts and their impact on their profession as well as on government itself. The weaknesses of the book are its focus on sometimes minor matters, its overemphasis on litigation and Irons' own evident bias against the work product of his subjects--the massive central government which emerged after 1937 from their work as master builders of the welfare state.

As the incoming administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt groped its way toward a coherent philosophy and program to cope with the formidable problems presented by a collapsing economy, the nation's capital offered unique opportunities to a small, select group of law graduates and young legal professionals. For some, the attraction was simply full employment, as the doors of the major urban law firms closed, especially to Jews, who accounted for a high percentage of the new legal staffs that sprouted in the mushrooming new administrative agencies of the New Deal.

For some, it was the sheer excitement of being involved with an ex...

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The New Deal Lawyers. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:09, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691978.html