Endorsement:
Exhaustively researched and admirably argued, this book analyzes the crucial role played by the federal circuit courts in bridging the diversity of the new nation and the need to establish a unified body of national law. It also throws important new light on the internal operation of the Marshall Court. A significant contribution to our understanding of the federal court system of the early republic. -- Professor R Kent Newmyer, University of Connecticut School of Law This fascinating and erudite book ... provides a classic illustration of the, generally sound, principle that travel broadens the mind. I warmly recommend it. -- Sir Christopher Rose * The Middle Templar Magazine * [This] work deals with a vitally important period of US legal history and the crucial role of the circuit courts in the development of a uniform system of federal law across the nation ... the author demonstrates how federal law developed from the lower courts upwards rather than from the Supreme Court downwards ... I commend this book as compulsory reading. -- David Steer QC DL * Counsel Magazine * ... as a guide to a critical period of US history, legal as well as economic and political, and to help in understanding how the fledgling state across the Atlantic has evolved, it is compulsory reading. -- Dara Robinson, Sheehan & Partners * Law Society Gazette (Ireland) * It is a road trodden by few American scholars and is thus genuinely new work. -- Sir Mark Hedley * Graya * The Role of Circuit Courts in the Formation of United States Law in the Early Republic merits a place in the library of every student and scholar of American legal history. Each chapter offers a concise overview of the Justice's significant circuit court decisions, providing a thoroughly readable, engaging judicial biography of its subject. -- Tara Helfman * Comparative Legal History * Lynch ... provides one more illustration that interest by English scholars in American constitutional government has persisted long after Maine... Lynch's research adds considerably to what is known about both cases decided by the the early federal judiciary and those Justices who served. -- Donald Grier Stephenson Jr * Journal of Supreme Court History * The subjects of this excellent book are four early American judges... the book's distinctive contribution is to assess the work of the federal circuit courts to which they were allocated, sharing their time between those courts and their sittings in Washington. This a book about remarkable judges based on a doctoral thesis by a remarkable judge. -- The Rt Hon Lord Justice Peter Jackson * Inner Temple Yearbook * This is a splendid work of historical and legal scholarship authored by a British judge... It admirably fills a gap in our literature on the early federal courts. This is a book that demands attention, due to the author's thoroughness and writing style. It just overflows with important information. Fortunately the footnotes are where they belong; at the foot of each page. The book includes three important appendices and an extensive bibliography...I am very glad I tackled this book, and students of judicial history and legal development, I venture to say, will be pleased as well should they read it. -- Ronald H Clark PhD, JD, formerly Senior Trial Counsel at the United States Department of Justice * Amazon.com *