There are thousands of books currently in print about Abraham Lincoln, his life, and his presidency, but only a handful of them focus on Lincoln's pre-presidential career: law. Lincoln practiced law for nearly twenty-five years in the Illinois courts. Other than part-time service in the Illinois legislature and the United States Congress, law was his full-time occupation. He handled cases in almost all court levels: justice of the peace, county, circuit, appellate, and federal. Like many of his colleagues at the bar, Lincoln was a general practice attorney and represented clients in a variety of civil and criminal actions including debt, slander, divorce, mortgage foreclosure, and murder. Lincoln was involved in more than 5,100 cases in Illinois alone during his 23-year legal career. Though many of these cases involved little more than filing a writ, others were more substantial and quite involved; Lincoln and his partners appeared before the Illinois State Supreme Court more than 400 times.In Abraham Lincoln, Esq., editors Roger Billings and Frank J. Williams have assembled a contributor list that includes notables Harold Holzer, William D. Pederson, and Mark Steiner, to examine not only Lincoln's Illinois law practice but also the effect his practice had on Lincoln's presidential actions. The book is separated into three parts: Evaluating Lincoln's Career, The Illinois Years, and The Washington Years, offering an expansive look at Lincoln's legal mind. E...