Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court

An inside look at the most secretive institution in the American government--the Supreme Court.

Operating inside a network of Byzantine secrecy, the United States Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial institution in the world. Nine unelected justices, supposedly insulated from the pressure of politics, are charged with protecting our most cherished rights and shaping our fundamental laws.

In this eloquent, trailblazing account, Edward Lazarus, who served as a clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, provides an insider's guided tour of a court at war with itself and often in neglect of its constitutional duties. He guides the reader through the Court's inner sanctum, explaining as only an eyewitness can the collisions of law, politics, and personality as the Justices wrestle with the most fiercely disputed issues of our time. Part memoir, part history, and all spellbinding narrative, Closed Chambers provides an intimate portrait--Justice by Justice--of the battles and compromises of the highest court in the land.

--Updated with a new Afterword

"Impeccably researched and impressively documented." --The Boston Globe

Edward Lazarus, a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, spills the beans on an institution that values silence. Nobody is supposed to understand what happens behind the scenes of the high court--that's why the justices rarely speak to the media--but Lazarus tells all he knows from his time as a top aide to Blackmun in the Supreme Court's 1988 term. There's a lot of legal theory and history, but it's well presented and usually focuses on touchstone issues in U.S. politics; cases involving abortion, the death penalty, and racial preferences receive sustained treatment in these pages. There are gossipy bits, too, revealing unflattering details about several current justices. Sure to be one of the more controversial books of the year. --John J. Miller