In one of the essays in The Best American Legal Writing 2009, President Barack Obama's former students say that he showed that "even the best-reasoned rules have unintended consequences, that competing legal interests cannot always be resolved, that a rule that promotes justice in one case can be unfair in the next." The stories collected here explore these complicated ideas and their place in a field that deals daily with issues of legality, morality, and responsibility. With articles written by Jeffrey Toobin, Michael Isikoff, and Daniel Lazar, and featuring pieces from publications such as The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Nation, and Newsweek, this book is a fascinating spotlight on the most important issues in this complex and influential discipline. Book jacket.