The rise and fall of the rule of law in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union has been dynamic and unpredictable. What started out as a robust, exciting and uncertain fledgling democracy and reform to a market economy based on the rule of law devolved into something different, something less. Judge Brooks traces his experience since 1991 working with Russian legal reformers as they endeavored to establish a nascent democracy and market economy built on a rule of law, an independent judiciary, principles of transparency, private property and open society.