Their fees are frequently enormous. Their daily labors ultimately affect every citizen in the country. Not suprisingly, Washington's lawyers have long preferred the privacy of paneled offices and governmental cloakrooms to scrutiny by the press and public.

Now, in one of the most knowledgeable books of recent years, Joeseph C. Goulden takes the reader on an eye opening tour of the eminent lawyers and influential law firms that practice along the Potomac. His narrative is a blend of investigative reporting and interviews with topflight Washington lawyers. Some speak with rare on-the-record candor. other tell startling corporate and government tales, both sacred and profane.

The Superlawyers introduces such blue-chip barristers as Clark Clifford, Abe Fortas, andTommy the Cork Corcoran, and such front-line firms as covington and Burling, Arnold and Porter, and Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering. There's a facsinating account of Richard Nixon's "wilderness years" at Mudge, Rose, Guthrie and Alexander that also portrays how the firm prospered after the former partner moved into the Whitehouse.

The million-dollar fees, the billion-dollar clients, the interface between big business and even bigger government, the high-level friendships, the elbow-in-the-eye tactics not taught at respectable law schools- all are detailed in this immensly readable book.