With over 700 entries, written by just under 600 contributors, this reference work stands as much as a monument to its editor as to its subject matter. Premised on the idea “to understand law, one must understand its leading figures” (xi), Newman selected an array of legal personalities, from the colonial era through 2005, including prominent nonlawyers, famous litigants, and influential foreigners. The list of contributors—which includes historians, legal scholars, and members of the bench and bar—comes close to rivaling the Dictionary's list of subjects. Indeed, some contributors are the subjects of entries themselves, such as Judges Robert Bork and Guido Calabresi, whose inclusion also demonstrates the ideological diversity of the work.

The range of entries is remarkable. Important literary figures such as Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Erle Stanley Gardner, and contemporaries, Grisham and Turow, fit comfortably alongside U.S. Supreme Court justices. Likewise, culturally significant figures, like Lizzie Borden, Leopold and Loeb, and O. J. Simpson, take their place next to a slough of law professors of various renown. Important politicians who significantly affected the legal world also figure prominently. Two categories of which there are probably too few representatives are philosophers and non-Americans—categories that the editor could have simultaneously satisfied with a few thoughtful selections.

Although one might not expect to find any non-Americans in a work on American law, the inclusion of a “handful” (xi) implies their singular influence on the title subject. While Bentham, Blackstone, James Bryce, and Tocqueville are certainly justified inclusions, the omission of several Brits is unfortunate, most notably Lord Mansfield, John Stuart Mill, and H. L. A. Hart. The shapers of early nineteenth-century U.S. law, (of whom there are also probably too few in this work), considered Mansfield to be the most important common law judge of recent memory, and strived to follow his example in reforming U.S. law towards a more malleable jurisprudence befitting an emerging commercial country. Although not primarily a legal theory, Mill's liberalism is essential to understanding the modern reverence for the First Amendment's speech protections. Finally, Hart's legal positivism continues to dominate modern jurisprudential debate about what counts as law, even if in attenuated form. Two significant philosophers—Morris Cohen and John Dewey—are included. However, Dewey's contributions to law, such as his “Logical Method and Law,” are not discussed. One philosopher whose omission is striking is John Rawls, especially considering how indebted modern liberals are to his theories and how prominent several of his former students are in the legal academy.

A work that contains the writings of such a diverse range of authors is bound to yield entries of varying usefulness to the legal historian. One cause for concern is that a number of the contributors were personally associated with the subjects of their entries. Thus we find mentee writing about mentor, law clerk writing about judge, and junior colleague writing about senior colleague. For the most part, such authors demonstrated remarkable restraint, tempering their affection with the realization that it is not universally shared. For example, Lawrence Friedman's entry on his mentor, Willard Hurst, balances Hurst's accomplishments with the acknowledgement that “later generations have questioned some of Hurst's assumptions” (280). Philip Frickey's discussion of his judge, John Minor Wisdom, certainly sings Wisdom's praises, but it also tells us about the “virulent opposition” to his race decisions (598).

Occasionally these personal-knowledge entries turn too celebratory. Steven Calabresi tells us that Justice Antonin Scalia is “one of the Court's intellectual leaders” (480). Yet, from reading the entry on Scalia—a comparatively long entry—one would not know that this “sharp mind” had many detractors (481). Fawning entries also lead to several subjects vying for the role of premier twentieth-century constitutional scholar. Kathleen Sullivan writes that her friend Gerald Gunther was “the nation's preeminent teacher and scholar of American constitutional law” (241). But according to the entry on Paul Freund, he was “the most celebrated constitutional law scholar of his time” (206). Not to be outdone by either of his contemporaries, John Hart Ely apparently penned “the most important book on American constitutional law of the twentieth century” (185).

On the whole, however, this work is quite useful to have on the shelf of the working legal historian. Sure, there is the occasional factual error, like placing Yale Kamisar at UC San Diego rather than the University of San Diego (306). But the real value lies in its compilation, basic biographical data, and the miniature bibliographies of two or three sources that follow each entry. The Dictionary is an ideal jumping-off point for embarking on research or for reminding oneself of important dates and titles associated with a particular legal personality.