Looking for a holiday gift for a lawyer? Check out “Lawyer Poets And That World We Call Law: An Anthology Of Poems About The Law,” edited by James R. Elkins. The poems are written by our fellow attorneys.

Here’s a theme in the book: The law shapes us, we do not shape it. Read “Found Objects.” Lawrence Russ muses on a young lawyer visiting an older and famous one (albeit a bullying and blustery one). The young lawyer spies a stuffed rattlesnake and scorpion on his desk and reflects “But how had his regular features grown/so misshapen, so lumpish,/his cheeks and brows/unevenly swollen; his skin/… as though someone had beaten him/daily, for weeks.” What’s inside, sooner or later, seeps out.