On any list of contemporary First Amendment experts, Floyd Abrams's name surely comes out on top. Since his participation in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, Abrams has tackled free-speech crises at every level of litigation, from initial trials to hearings before the Supreme Court. Through his legal arguments, articles, speeches, debates and testimony, Abrams has played a key role in shaping American law as it pertains to free speech and has affected the treatment of free-speech rights outside the U.S. as well.
In Friend of the Court, Abrams compiles writings on the First Amendment and related issues that span his career. Among the topics tackled in the collection are national security, prior restraint, censorship and libel and slander. Although Abrams is an attorney and his writings often delve into the depths of legal arguments, many of the pieces included in the collection were created to be accessible to general audiences. And, although Abrams has refined his own position on the First Amendment over the years, a common thread links the decades of work presented here: the staunch belief that the First Amendment's free speech right, one of the most expansive such rights in the world, must be vigorously defended as essential to the preservation of all other rights and to the basic form of representative democracy promised by the Constitution. With characteristic clarity and verve, Abrams offers a clear vision of the purpose of the First Amendment and the crucial role it plays in our nation's discourse. --Dani Alexis Ryskamp, blogger at The Book Cricket