An old anecdote from the legal field states that a good lawyer is not, in fact, one who never loses. This is impossible. A good lawyer, instead, is one who postpones defeat. Eduardo Spiller Pena’s book examines the legal practice and politics of three famous lawyers involved in the ongoing legal battles over the problem of slavery in Brazil, mainly in the 1850s and 1860s. The common connection between them was the IAB (Instituto dos Advogados do Brasil). Since a significant part of the imperial elite was composed of jurists, the IAB eventually brought together 44 members of the House of Representatives, 11 senators, 9 representatives who later became senators, and 25 members of the Council of State. The explicit objective of this association of jurists was to make decisions concerning the lacunae and contradictions of Brazil’s legal code. According to Pena, the members of the IAB intended their opinions...

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