”Supreme Ambitions,” a new book of legal fiction by lawyer-journalist David Lat, is the first title from Ankerwycke, an imprint of the American Bar Association geared toward a consumer market and broader legal appeal.
Watch a short, 5-minute video of author David Lat discussing his new, highly acclaimed book, “Supreme Ambitions.”
Lat, who is based in New York, is the founder and editor of Above the Law, an award-winning legal website that reaches more than one million unique visitors a month. Prior to starting Above the Law in the summer of 2006, Lat founded Underneath Their Robes, a blog about federal judges. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among other publications, and he has been profiled in Details magazine. “Supreme Ambitions” is his first novel.
In the book, Lat brings the reader inside the chambers of powerful, life-tenured federal judges through the lens of law clerk Audrey Coyne, a recent Yale Law School graduate, and her boss Christina Wong Stinson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Both pursue possible paths to their dream jobs at the U.S. Supreme Court. On their way to an even more prestigious clerkship for Coyne and an associate justice position for Stinson, their personal agendas and allegiances to the law collide.
The Washington Post praised Lat’s book for doing “a great job of vividly portraying the world in which it is set, perhaps because (Lat) has such extensive personal experience with it.” The New York Times said “’Supreme Ambitions’ has become the most buzzed-about novel of the year.” The National Law Journal called Lat’s book a “thriller that captures the law clerk experience masterfully, with all its intensity, competitiveness, big-bucks allure and prestige.” And The New York Law Journal praised “Supreme Ambitions,” noting that the book “shows us the inner workings of a judicial chamber and the intrigue that goes on at the highest levels of the judiciary — details only an insider like Lat can reveal.”
Released in time for the holiday shopping season, “Supreme Ambitions” is the debut book of Ankerwycke, a contemporary and innovative line of books from the American Bar Association, the nation’s most trusted and vested authority in legal publishing. In 1215, Magna Carta was sealed underneath the ancient Ankerwycke Yew tree, starting the process which led to rule by constitutional law — in effect, giving rights and the law to the people. The ABA’s Ankerwycke line of books continues to bring the law to the people, with Ankerwycke planning to release more than 35 books next year. The titles include legal fiction, true crime books, popular legal histories, public policy handbooks and prescriptive guides to current legal and business issues
