Stephen Breyer Popular Books

Stephen Breyer Biography & Facts

Stephen Gerald Breyer ( BRY-ər; born August 15, 1938) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and replaced retiring justice Harry Blackmun. Breyer was generally associated with the liberal wing of the Court. He is now the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law and Process at Harvard Law School. Born in San Francisco, Breyer attended Stanford University, and the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1964. After a clerkship with Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964–65, Breyer was a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School from 1967 until 1980. He specialized in administrative law, writing textbooks that remain in use today. He held other prominent positions before being nominated to the Supreme Court, including special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust and assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Breyer became a federal judge in 1980, when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In his 2005 book Active Liberty, Breyer made his first attempt to systematically communicate his views on legal theory, arguing that the judiciary should seek to resolve issues in a manner that encourages popular participation in governmental decisions. On January 27, 2022, Breyer and President Joe Biden announced Breyer's intention to retire from the Supreme Court. On February 25, 2022, Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and one of Breyer's former law clerks, to succeed him. Breyer remained on the Supreme Court until June 30, 2022, when Jackson succeeded him. Breyer wrote majority opinions in landmark Supreme Court cases such as Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., United States v. Lara, and Google v. Oracle and notable dissents questioning the constitutionality of the death penalty in cases such as Glossip v. Gross. Early life and education Breyer was born on August 15, 1938, in San Francisco, California, to Anne A. (née Roberts) and Irving Gerald Breyer. Breyer's paternal great-grandfather emigrated from Romania to the United States, settling in Cleveland, Ohio, where Breyer's grandfather was born. Breyer was raised in a middle-class Jewish family. His father was a lawyer who served as legal counsel to the San Francisco Board of Education. Breyer and his younger brother Charles R. Breyer, who later became a federal district judge, were active in the Boy Scouts of America and achieved the Eagle Scout rank. Breyer attended Lowell High School, where he was a member of the Lowell Forensic Society and debated regularly in high school tournaments, including against future California governor Jerry Brown and future Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe. After graduating from high school in 1955, Breyer studied philosophy at Stanford University. He graduated in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honors and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Breyer was awarded a Marshall Scholarship, which he used to study philosophy, politics, and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a first-class honors B.A. in 1961. He then returned to the United States to attend Harvard Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Laws degree, magna cum laude. Breyer spent eight years in the United States Army Reserve including six months on active duty in the Army Strategic Intelligence. He reached the rank of corporal and was honorably discharged in 1965. In 1967, Breyer married The Honourable Joanna Freda Hare, a psychologist and member of the British aristocracy, younger daughter of John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham and granddaughter of Richard Hare, 4th Earl of Listowel. They have three adult children: Chloe, an Episcopal priest; Nell; and Michael. Legal career After law school, Breyer served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court justice Arthur Goldberg from 1964 to 1965. He served briefly as a fact-checker for the Warren Commission, then spent two years in the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division as a special assistant to its Assistant Attorney General. In 1967, Breyer returned to Harvard Law School as an assistant professor. He taught at Harvard Law until 1980, and held a joint appointment at Harvard Kennedy School from 1977 to 1980. At Harvard, Breyer was known as a leading expert on administrative law. While there, he wrote two highly influential books on deregulation: Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation and Regulation and Its Reform. In 1970, Breyer wrote "The Uneasy Case for Copyright", one of the most widely cited skeptical examinations of copyright. Breyer was a visiting professor at the College of Law in Sydney, Australia, the University of Rome, and the Tulane University Law School. While teaching at Harvard, Breyer took several leaves of absence to serve in the U.S. government. He served as an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Breyer was a special counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1974 to 1975 and served as chief counsel of the committee from 1979 to 1980. He worked closely with the chairman of the committee, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to pass the Airline Deregulation Act that closed the Civil Aeronautics Board. U.S. Court of Appeals (1980–1994) In the last days of President Jimmy Carter's administration, on November 13, 1980, after he had been defeated for reelection, Carter nominated Breyer to the First Circuit, to a new seat established by 92 Stat. 1629, and the United States Senate confirmed him on December 9, 1980, by an 80–10 vote. He received his commission on December 10, 1980. From 1980 to 1994, Breyer was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; he was the court's Chief Judge from 1990 to 1994. One of his duties as chief judge was to oversee the design and construction of a new federal courthouse for Boston, beginning an avocational interest in architecture and the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Breyer served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States between 1990 and 1994 and the United States Sentencing Commission between 1985 and 1989. On the sentencing commission he played a key role in reforming federal criminal sentencing procedures, producing the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which were formulated to increase uniformity in sentencing. Supreme Court (1994–2022) In 1993, on the recommendation of Orrin Hatch, President Bill Clinton considered both Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the seat vacated by Byron White. Clinton ultimately appointed Ginsburg. After Harry Blackmun retired in 1994, Clinton initially offered the nomination to George Mitchell, the Senate Majority Leader, .... Discover the Stephen Breyer popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Stephen Breyer books.

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  • Ketanji Brown Jackson synopsis, comments

    Ketanji Brown Jackson

    Tami Charles

    Discover the incredible story of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who followed her childhood dream of becoming a lawyer and eventually became the first Black woman to sit on the US S...

  • The Roberts Court synopsis, comments

    The Roberts Court

    Marcia Coyle

    For years, the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts has been at the center of a constitutional maelstrom. Here, the muchhonored, expert Supreme Court reporter Marcia Coy...

  • The Court and the World synopsis, comments

    The Court and the World

    Stephen Breyer

    In this original, farreaching, and timely book, Justice Stephen Breyer examines the work of the Supreme Court of the United States in an increasingly interconnected world, a world ...

  • Justice Corrupted synopsis, comments

    Justice Corrupted

    Ted Cruz

    . . . with liberty and justice for some. The left has corrupted the U.S. legal system. Wielding the law as a weapon, arrogant judges and lawless prosecutors are intimidating, ...

  • The Supermajority synopsis, comments

    The Supermajority

    Michael Waldman

    A “terrific, if chilling, account” (The Guardian) of how the Supreme Court’s new conservative supermajority is overturning decades of law and leading the country in a dangerous pol...

  • Making Our Democracy Work synopsis, comments

    Making Our Democracy Work

    Stephen Breyer

    The Supreme Court is one of the most extraordinary institutions in our system of government. Charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution, the nine unelected ju...

  • The Controversialist synopsis, comments

    The Controversialist

    Martin Peretz

    Featured in the Wall Street JournalFrom his deep involvement in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s to his almost forty years at the head of the New Republic, Marti...

  • My Own Words synopsis, comments

    My Own Words

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg

    The New York Times bestselling book from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg“a comprehensive look inside her brilliantly analytical, entertainingly wry mind, revealing the fa...

  • Dinners with Ruth synopsis, comments

    Dinners with Ruth

    Nina Totenberg

    Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and lifeaffirming relationships, including her beautiful friendsh...

  • Active Liberty synopsis, comments

    Active Liberty

    Stephen Breyer

    A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to prese...

  • I Dissent synopsis, comments

    I Dissent

    Debbie Levy

    Get to know celebrated Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgin the first picture book about her lifeas she proves that disagreeing does not make you disagreeable!Supreme Court ...

  • Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue synopsis, comments

    Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Amanda L. Tyler

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s final book offers an intimate look at her extraordinary life and details her lifelong pursuit for gender equality and a “more perfect Union.”In the fall of 20...

  • The Justices Behind Roe V. Wade synopsis, comments

    The Justices Behind Roe V. Wade

    Bob Woodward, Scott Armstrong & George Truett

    A thrilling, behindthescenes account of the revolutionary Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling.The Justices Behind Roe V. Wade offers a frontrow seat to the inner workings of the Supre...

  • Becoming RBG synopsis, comments

    Becoming RBG

    Debbie Levy

    From the New York Times bestselling author of I Dissent comes a biographical graphic novel about celebrated Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Supreme Court justice Ruth Bad...

  • Injustices synopsis, comments

    Injustices

    Ian Millhiser

    Now with a new epilogue an unprecedented and unwavering history of the Supreme Court showing how its decisions have consistently favored the moneyed and powerful. Few American inst...