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LAST BRANCH STANDING

New from Sarah Isgur

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A myth-busting glimpse into the inner workings of the Supreme Court, revealing what we get wrong about the Roberts Court, what the justices' clerks gossip about, and how to fix a court in crisis - from the popular ABC News pundit and top legal podcaster.

Most people get the Supreme Court all wrong. A smattering of high-profile decisions have popularized a simplistic idea of the Court and its justices. So how do you truly understand the Court? The ultimate insider, Sarah Isgur takes readers on a deep dive inside the Supreme Court: how cases land at the Court’s doorstep, which justices attend clerk happy hours (and which ones even bother showing up to the office), why conservatives already have buyer’s remorse about Amy Coney Barrett, and how the whole judicial system is kind of a constitutional anomaly. She’ll even help you decide whether you should throw your hat in the ring and go to law school! Blending irreverent humor and incisive commentary, Isgur goes underneath the robes—and shows us what we need to do to preserve the rule of law amid dicey times in this little self-governing experiment we’ve been running for the last 250 years.

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EARLY PRAISE FOR LAST BRANCH STANDING

  • Smart, snappy, clear-eyed pages

    “Put aside partisanship, argues Sarah Isgur, in attempting to make sense of the Supreme Court. She offers an alternate framework in this intimate look at the untouchable nine. How do political labels actually translate to a legal context? Which judge does every modern jurist most of all revere? How might we preserve the Court’s legitimacy? Which of its members carries a pocket Constitution, which takes boxing lessons, and which lobbied for the frozen yogurt machine in the cafeteria? Isgur has all your answers in these smart, snappy, clear-eyed pages.”

    —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

  • Analytically brilliant and yet hugely entertaining

    “The Supreme Court may seem as opaque as the justices’ black robes, but not in the hands of Sarah Isgur. This is a book for the rest of us—analytically brilliant and yet hugely entertaining, deeply respectful and also irreverent. Arcane legal arguments get recast here in delightfully plain and demystifying language. With legal principles challenged almost every day in America, the role of the Court has rarely been so scrutinized, making Last Branch Standing ever the more timely. Who would have thought that such a scrupulously fair account of such a serious institution could be so fun to read!”

    —Martha Raddatz, ABC News anchor and chief global affairs correspondent

  • If you want to learn about the Supreme Court—this book is a must-read

    “Sarah Isgur’s Last Branch Standing is as gripping and informative as her famed podcast, Advisory Opinions. Smart, incisive, nuanced, and funny, this book advocates for the Court—and does so with panache. Isgur succeeds where many others fall short because she illustrates how the Court is not made up of heroes and villains, but real people who do their level best in service of us all. If you want to learn about the Supreme Court—and have great fun along the way—this book is a must-read.”

    —Lisa Blatt, Chair, Williams & Connolly’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice; 55-time Supreme Court advocate

  • Sarah manages to demystify the U.S. Supreme Court while maintaining her reverence for it

    “Sarah Isgur does something truly remarkable: she manages to demystify the U.S. Supreme Court while maintaining her reverence for it. In Last Branch Standing, Isgur illuminates not just how the court actually works, but why partisans and court-bashers of the right and left so often fall for cartoonish explanations for court decisions. Like the author, Last Branch Standing is always smart and insightful, often surprising and fun, and not infrequently profound.”

    —Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, host of The Remnant podcast, and bestselling author of Suicide of the West

  • In a word, winning.

    “Occasionally witty, yes. Actually, often witty. More important, often wise. In a word, winning. Before I dove into this volume, I thought I knew rather a lot about the Court and its justices. Now I know a ton more—and so will you if you are wise enough to open this book and start reading.”

    —Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University, and author of Born Equal

  • A strikingly illuminating introduction to the Supreme Court

    “Last Branch Standing is a strikingly illuminating introduction to the Supreme Court. Sarah Isgur humanizes the Justices, explains their work, and defends the Court’s integrity amid growing skepticism on both left and right. Last Branch Standing is the most accessible and engagingly written guide to the Court now available.”

    —Jack Goldsmith, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University

MEET SARAH

Sarah Isgur is the editor of SCOTUSblog, host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions, and a legal analyst for ABC News. Isgur has previously worked on multiple presidential campaigns and in all three branches of the federal government. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Northwestern University.

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