Law on Trial: An Unlikely Insider Reckons with Our Legal System

by Shaun Ossei-Owusu

A Bronx–born Ivy League professor cracks open the machinery of American law in an unflinching exposé that shows how lawyers fuel a range of inequalities.


The law is supposed to represent fairness, equality, and transparency. Yet in a world where injustice is normalized, many struggle to understand why our legal system fails despite its lofty principles. In Law on Trial, award–winning legal scholar Shaun Ossei–Owusu offers a rare perspective as an insider and a clear–eyed critic of its deep, baked–in structural problems. He begins with a tour through American legal education, where some of the seeds of inequality are planted in the emphasis on abstract thinking. He then moves to different corners of the profession where those seeds elite law firms, government offices, and well–intended public–interest organizations. At every step, Ossei–Owusu confronts some of America’s polarizing topics—crime, poverty, and corporate power—and highlights the legal profession’s troubling complicity. His defiant dissents challenge liberal and conservative orthodoxy while illuminating how the legal system might move closer to its highest aspirations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Law

432 pages, Hardcover

Published April 14, 2026

Reviews

[Monica Beard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was excited to receive an early copy from W.W. Norton, because so few books about law and lawyers even mention civil defenders. I feel like it is rare that anyone has even heard of it! Ossei-Owusu's thesis is that law is often a means to make something that we consider moral and philosophic questions into bureaucratic questions. We consider procedure and process rather than actual effects.

I practice in Delaware, where an overwhelming percentage of lawyers in our small state do corporate law, and the office in Wilmington can feel very disconnected from the impact that oil companies, or mergers or protecting insurance companies seems to have. I think more lawyers should be thoughtful about how legal doctrine and education impact how we view the world, and I think this would be an incredibly thoughtful required read for any law student, lawyer or those interested in policy work.

[Susie Dumond · Rating 5 out of 5]

A broad exploration of the ways in which our "impartial" justice system reinforces unjust systems of power. It's a challenging read, but law professor Shaun Ossei-Owusu does an excellent job of breaking down complex concepts, even for readers unfamiliar with the legal system.

[Lauren Reagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book, and I'll reference it often. It has successfully deterred me from going to law school. 10/10

[Matthew]

The observations are pretty obvious to me but true all the same