In the December issue of The Federal Lawyer, Dick Dean reviewed Rebel Lawyer: Wayne Collins and the Defense of Japanese American Rights. Dick calls it “an elegantly written volume that describes three cases handled by Wayne Collins; … not an iconic lawyer, but he was without question the leading advocate on behalf of the legal rights of Japanese-Americans during World War II and in the years immediately thereafter. The book details Collins’s defenses of Fred Korematsu, Tokyo Rose, and Japanese-Americans who renounced their citizenship while in detention camps and became subject to deportation proceedings. The publication of Rebel Lawyer coincides with the current immigration debates, which address some of the same legal issues confronted by Japanese-Americans. The past is, as they say, prologue—and Rebel Lawyer establishes that point.”

Dick sums up the book by saying, “It is well known that civil liberties are an early casualty of war. As Justice Jackson himself once noted, “the rights of our clients, like the liberties of our people, are only what some lawyer can make good in a courtroom.” Rebel Lawyer makes clear that one lawyer can make a significant impact in that regard.

Read the review here.