GREAT LAW BOOKS

FOR

PRE-LAW & LAW STUDENTS, JOB SEEKERS, AND FULL-FLEDGED LAWYERS

This list of law books is broken down by approximate phase of the lawyer life-cycle. We'll try to add more books periodically. Please revisit every once in a while, and please also submit your your suggestions.

Oh...The links are to pages at Amazon.com. Just click if you're interested. Most carry a discount, but that's up to Amazon of course. We've tried to note books that are special order or otherwise difficult to find. (If so, check with your friendly librarian.)

Good Reading, and on to The Law...

1.0 Before Law School

• Anarchy and Elegance, by Chris Goodrich. Unfortunately, it's out-of-print, but it's worth finding.
• Planet Law School, by "Atticus Falcon," Esq. [Note: This title is published by The Fine Print Press, which sponsors this page.] The above link is to Amazon. If you'd like additional information on this title first, click here.
• One L, by Scott Turow. His first book. A look into the atmosphere and stress of law school. It's available in paperback or hardcover.
• Majoring in Law, by Stephan Underhill. Explores many of the myths of life as an attorney. Excellent.
• The Soul of the Law: Understanding Lawyers and the Law, by Benjamin Sells (1994).
• The Lure of the Law: Why People Become Lawyers and What the Profession Does to Them, by Richard W. Moll.
• Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School, by Richard Kahlenberg. The title says it all.
• The Lost Lawyer, by Anthony Kronman (Dean of Yale Law School). A critical, intellectual examination of the legal profession.
• Imagining the Law: Common Law and the Foundations of the American Legal System, by Norman F. Cantor.
• Law v. Life: What Lawyers Are Afraid to Say About the Legal Profession, by Walt Bachman.
• Full Disclosure, edited by Susan J. Bell.
• Bramble Bush, by Karl N. Llewellyn. A classic.
• Law of the Land, by Charles Rembar. A well-written history and commentary on legal process from Richard II to Richard Nixon.
• Law's Empire, by Ronald Dworkin. One of the deans of legal education. A bit difficult at times, but worth reading.
• A Matter of Principle, by Ronald Dworkin.

2.0 Books on Law Schools & The LSAT.

2.5 You're In! Stuff on law school courses.

3.0 A whole bunch of books on Getting a Law Job!

4.0 The Bar Exam:

• How to Pass the Bar Exam, also by Mary C. Gallagher. Special order. Might be faster to get it through a law school bookstore.
• Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays: 80 Full-Length Sample Bar Exam Questions, by Mary C. Gallagher. Sorry...Don't know which one is better, but the second one should be easier to get.

5.0 Figuring out how to actually be a Lawyer :

• The Young Lawyer's Jungle Book: A Survival Guide, by Thane J. Messinger. (The original contributor to this list, an attorney in Honolulu, and adjunct professor of business law at the University of Hawaii.) The above link is to Amazon. If you'd like additional information on this title first, click here.

6.0 Legal Writing :

• Legal Writing: Sense and Nonsense, by David Mellinkoff. An excellent resource. [Might be out-of-print, but check in a library.]
• Plain English Pleadings, by Carol A. Wilson. Another must-have book, but wait until you're familiar with legal terms.
• The Elements of Legal Style, by Bryan Garner. Very good.
• Plain English for Lawyers, Richard C. Wydick.
• The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well, by Tom Goldstein and Jethro K. Lieberman.
• Essential Latin for Lawyers, by Russ Versteeg. Fun for those who enjoyed latin in high school.
• The Elements of Style, by William Strunk. Not written specifically for lawyers, but it's a classic -- and useful for anyone who works with words. It's also quite inexpensive. It's available in paperback or hardcover.
• The Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus.

7.0 Goodies for Transactional Lawyers, Trial Lawyers, and Just Plain Ol' Lawyers.

8.0 Starting Your Own Law Practice (including future rainmakers):

8.1 Just Getting Started?
• Running a Law Practice on a Shoestring, by Theda C. Snyder.
• How to Start and Build Your Own Law Practice, by Jay G. Foonberg. Expensive, but comprehensive.
• The Young Lawyer's Handbook, by Polly McGlew. Hard-to-find, but in-depth advice. (No relation between this book and The Young Lawyer's Jungle Book: A Survival Guide, by Thane Messinger. The Young Lawyer's Handbook is published by Future Horizons, Inc. ( Phone: 1.817.277.0727 )
• Lawyers Quick Guide to Timeslips, by Carol L. Schleinn.
8.2 Getting Established:
• Law Firm Marketing: Successfully Promoting and Building Your Small Firm or Solo Practice, by Daniel B. Kennedy. Take this part of practice very, very seriously.
• Marketing for Attorneys and Law Firms, edited by William J. Winston.
• Marketing to the Affluent, by Thomas J. Stanley. Not directly law related, but of obvious relevance.
• Client Accounting for the Law Office, by Elaine M. Langston.
• The Business of Practicing Law: The Work Lives of Solo and Small-Firm Attorneys, by Carroll Seron. More academic.
• Legal Office Procedures, by Joyce Morton.
• Basics of Legal Document Preparation, by Robert R. Cummins.
8.3 Getting Big:
• Law Office Management, by Jonathon Lynton, Terri Mick Lyndall, Donna Masinter, and Jonath Lynton.
• Law Department Benchmarks, by Rees W. Morrison. For large, in-house operations. (Also might be useful for large law firm managing partners.)
• The Customer Driven Company: Moving from Talk to Action, by Richard C. Whiteley. An excellent resource for law firm managing partners (...and aspiring managing partners).
8.4 ...Miscelleny:
• The Complete Guide to Contract Lawyering: What Every Lawyer and Law Firm Needs to Know About Temporary Legal Services, by Deborah Arron and Deborah Guyol. An increasingly common employment option for lawyers and their employers.
• Bounce Back from Bankruptcy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Back on Your Feet, by Paula L. Ryan. A good book for clients. (Let's hope not for you!) Call Pellingham Casper Communications, at 1-800-507-9244.

9.0 Extra-Curricular Reading to keep those Synapses Synapsing :

• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. A classic...and for good reason. Available in paperback or hardcover or audio cassette or video (with Gregory Peck). Whew!
• A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr. Not fiction, but a page-turner nonetheless. Available in paperback, hardcover, or audio cassette.
• Lord of the Flies, by William Gerald Golding. Another classic. Available in hardcover or paperback.
• The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger. And yet another classic. Available in hardcover or paperback.
• Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow. (Author of One-L, above.) Available in paperback or audio cassette.
• The Rainmaker, by John Grisham. A compelling protagonist and a good read. Available in paperback, hardcover, or audio cassette.
• Serpico, by Peter Maas. The novel upon which the movie was based.
• Gideon's Trumpet, by Anthony Lewis.
• Trial, by Clifford Irving. A good read, and cheap, too. And another...
• The Trial, by Franz Kafka, George Steiner, Willa Muir, and Edwin Muir. A classic tale of the dark realities faced by those on the margins.

10.0 A Little Something to Ponder :

10.1 The Legal Profession:
• Laying Down the Law: Mysticism, Fetishism, and the American Legal Mind, by Pierre Schlag.
• Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law, by Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry.
• Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine, by Barry Werth.
• A Nation Under Lawyers: How the Crisis in the Legal Profession Is Transforming American Society, by Mary Ann Glendon.
• The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, by Philip K. Howard. Tilting at more than a few Establishment windmills...a perennial good thing, within reason. Available in paperback, hardcover, or audio cassette.
• Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse, by Mary Ann Glendon.
• The Betrayed Profession: Lawyering at the End of the Twentieth Century, by Sol M. Linowitz and Martin Mayer. Available in paperback or hardcover.
• Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and Technology in America, by Sheila Jasanoff.
• The Law Under the Swastika: Studies on Legal History in Nazi Germany, by Michael Stolleis, Thomas Dunlap (trans.), and Marcus Zimmermann.
• The Death of Contract, by Grant Gilmore and Ronald K. L. Collins.
• The Law, by Frederic Bastiat (Translated by Dean Russell). Over 100 years old, and still going strong.
• Overcoming Law, by Richard A. Posner. A fascinating book from one of today's legal demigods.
• Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, by Cass R. Sunstein. Another of law's demigods.
• Simple Rules for a Complex World, by Richard A. Epstein. Yet another.
• The Terrible Truth About Lawyers, by Mark McCormack. A somewhat exaggerated title, and out-of-print, but worth reading if you can find it.
• The Honest Hour: The Ethics of Time-Based Billing by Attorneys, by William G. Ross. Nice tie-in to above title.
• The Morality of Consent, by Alexander M. Bickel. A bit on the academic side, but interesting nonetheless.
• With Justice for None: Destroying an American Myth, by Gerry Spence. One of his first books; a provocative look at our legal system and real-life law.
• Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America, by Jerold S. Auerbach.
• Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, by Dan Baum. The title says it all. It's available in paperback or hardcover.
• Moral Vision and Professional Decisions: The Changing Values of Women and Men Lawyers, by Rand Jack and Dana C. Jack.
• The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer: Truth, Justice, Power, and Greed, by Richard A. Zitrin and Carol M. Langford.

10.2 Law Practice:
• Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of the Big Law Firm, by Marc Galanter and Thomas Palay.
• Profit and the Practice of Law: What's Happened to the Legal Profession, by Michael H. Trotter.
• Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire, by Lincoln Caplan. The birth and upbringing of a legal giant.
• Why Lawyers (and the Rest of Us) Lie and Engage in Other Repugnant Behaviour, by Mark Perlmutter.

10.25 Libertarian & Other Rantings:
• Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society, by Peter McWilliams. Available in paperback or hardcover. Kinda' makes you wonder how restrictive forces have taken us where we are. 'Course, censorship has always been our second-strongest impulse.
• Libertarianism: A Primer, by David Boaz.
• Changing America's Tax System: A Guide to the Debate, by The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Martin A. Sullivan.
• The Law of Self-Defense: A Guide for the Armed Citizen, by Andrew F. Branca. For those gun-toters among us.

10.26 Economics (Not boring. Honest!):
• A Stream of Windows: Unsettling Reflections on Trade, Immigration, and Democracy, by Jagdish N. Bhagwati. A collection of articles from one of the foremost economic thinkers of our time.
• Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith. The book he wrote before "The Wealth of Nations" -- and an interesting counter-point to those who take only portions of his later writings to support an ideological thesis.

10.3 Racin' to Reno when we could be walking to Rochester:
• Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin. The classic story of a white man, camoflauged as a black one, in the Deep South of a generation ago. An eye-opener...then and now.
• The Good Black: A True Story of Race in America, by Paul M. Barrett.
• Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa, by Keith B. Richburg. A description wouldn't do this book justice; read it if you have an opinion about race and racial politics. Love it or hate it, it'll add a little depth to your thinking (especially if you've not been to Africa).
• Confronting Authority: Reflections of an Ardent Protester, by Derrick Bell. And, for a little balance from the previous book, here's one by Professor Bell, who was dismissed from Harvard Law School for his position on the number of minority faculty at HLS.
• The Darden Dilemma: 12 Black Writers on Justice, Race, and Conflicting Loyalties, ed. by Ellis Cose.
• One by One from the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America, by Glenn C. Loury.
• Conquests and Cultures: An International History, by Thomas Sowell. He's also written:
• Race and Culture: A World View, by Thomas Sowell.
• The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy, by Thomas Sowell.
• Inside American Education: The Decline, the Deception, the Dogmas, by Thomas Sowell. Four important books by an important writer.
• The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America, by Shelby Steele.
• The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Dubois, Donald B. Gibson (Introduction), W. E. B. Du Bois
• Black Reconstruction in America, by W.E.B. Du Bois. Might find a copy in the library.
• Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry, by Bernard W. Lewis.
• Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, by Ronald Takaki.
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

10.301 Affirmative Action:
• Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, by Stephen L. Carter. A provocative look at this troubled, and troubling, issue, by a law prof at Yale.
• The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action, by Richard D. Kahlenberg. An insightful and refreshing look at this devisive issue.
• The Color Bind: The Campaign to End Affirmative Action, by Lydia Chavez. An even-handed exploration of California's recent, successful referendum to end preferential treatment.
• The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society, by Dinesh D'Souza. Doesn't pull any punches. Whatever your prejudices, it's worth the few hours to read every bit of it.
• The Economics of Discrimination, by Gary Stanley Becker.
• Affirmative Action and Minority Enrollments in Medical and Law Schools, by Susan Welch and John Gruhl.
• Affirmative Action and Black Entrepreneurship, by Thomas D. Boston.

10.35 Edu...macation.
• Losing Our Language: How Multicultural Classroom Instruction Is Undermining Our Children's Ability to Read, Write, and Reason, by Sandra Stotsky. Agree or not, this is an issue waiting to explode.
• Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities, by John M. Ellis.
• Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education, by Roger Kimball. A book that started a new criticism of the newest members of the academy.
• The Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America, by Richard J. Ellis. Also quite interesting.

10.4 What's Your Name, Kid?
• Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining: America's Toughest Family Court Judge Speaks Out, by Judy Sheindlin and Josh Getlin. Available in paperback or hardcover. Hey, I'm from Texas, and I couldn't resist a book with a title like this. Even better, it offers plenty of food for thought about a central part of our legal system (especially from the public's perspective): family law. Gets a bit monotonous, but she has a valid perspective, and is forceful in getting her point across. (TJM)
• While we're on family law: No One Will Lissen': How Our Legal System Brutalizes the Youthful Poor, by Lois G. Forer. I read this years ago. Not light reading, as I recall. Very out-of-print (© 1970), but you might find it through your library. [TJM]
• No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court, by Edward Humes.

10.5 It's a Crime Shame:
• Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, by John E. Douglas & Mark Olshaker.
• Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist, by Michael Browning and William R. Maples.
• Attorney for the Damned: A Lawyer's Life With the Criminally Insane, by Denis Woychuk. A disturbing look at an often-hidden part of the legal world.
• In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison, by Jack Henry Abbott. The birth and upbringing of a legal giant.
• The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, by Norval Morris (ed.), David J. Rothman (ed.), and Noval Morris.
• May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment, by John C. Tucker. A harrowing account of a (probably) wrongly accused and executed man, and a system that -- amazingly -- uses technicalities for the wrong reasons, which leads many to an anti-death-penalty conclusion. The obverse argument is given in two words, however: Ted Bundy.
• Trials Without Truth: Why Our System of Criminal Trials Has Become an Expensive Failure and What We Need to Do to Rebuild It, by William T. Pizzi.
• The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, by Harold Schechter & David Everitt. More ammunition for the other camp.
• Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice, by Harold J. Rothwax.

10.6 They Allow GIRLS in Here?!?
• Women Rainmakers' 101+ Best Marketing Tips, by Theda C. Snyder (ed.). Published by the Amercian Bar Ass'n.
• Getting Down To Business: Marketing and Women Lawyers, by Deborah Graham
• Presumed Equal: What America's Top Women Lawyers Really Think About Their Firms, by Suzanne Nossel & Elizabeth Westfall
• Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession, by Margaret Thornton.
• Women Lawyers: Rewriting the Rules, by Mona Harrington.
• Sex Discrimination in the Legal Profession, by Bernard F. Lentz & David N. Laband. On the academic side.
• Sisters in Law: Women Lawyers in Modern American History, by Virginia G. Drachman.
• Inadmissible Evidence: The Story of the African-American Trial Lawyer Who Defended the Black Liberation Army, by Evelyn Williams & Haywood Burns.
• Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms, by Jennifer L. Pierce. An interesting sociological look at the segregation of and differences between women and men practitioners.
• Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers, edited by J. Clay Smith.
• Called from Within: Early Women Lawyers of Hawai'i, by Mari Matsuda.
• The 50 Most Influential Women in Law, by Dawn B. Berry.
• Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional Change, by Lani Guinier, Michelle Fine, and Jane Balin.
• Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, by Susan Faludi.

10.7 May it Please the Court...
• Famous Trials: Cases That Made History, by F. J. McLynn.
• Disorderly Conduct: Verbatim Excerpts from Actual Cases, by Rodney R. Jones, Charles M. Sevilla, and Gerald F. Uelmen.
• Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History, by Charles M. Sevilla.
• Ghost Dancing the Law: The Wounded Knee Trials, by John William Sayer.
• At the Bar: The Passions and Peccadilloes of American Lawyers, by David Margolick, with illustrations by Elliott Banfield. A well written and witty look at lawyers and the law, warts and all.
• The Court TV Cradle-To-Grave Legal Survival Guide: A Complete Resource for Any Question You Might Have About the Law, edited by Steven Brill. A good one for Court-TV buffs.
• A Book of Legal Lists: The Best and Worst in American Law With 100 Court and Judge Trivia Questions, by Bernard Schwartz. A trivial escape for those dark & stormy nights. (If that's what you *really* do...seek professional help of a non-legal kind.)
• A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials, by Frances Hill & Karen Armstrong.

10.8 The Supremes
• Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court, by Edward Lazarus. Behind the scenes with the Supremes. What else is there to say? (...other than that Lazarus' book has caused a storm of protest over clerk confidentiality.)
• Decision: How the Supreme Court Decides Cases, by Bernard Schwartz. Oxford book; not surprisingly, less flamboyant than Lazarus' book.
• Benchmarks: Great Constitutional Controversies in the Supreme Court, ed. by Terry Eastland.
• The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics, by Alexander M. Bickel.
• A History of the Supreme Court, by Bernard Schwartz. Another good background book by Schwartz.
• The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, by Kermit L. Hall, James W. Ely, Joel B. Grossman (ed.), and William M. Wiecek. An excellent, if excessive, er...companion to the Supreme Court. Why, you'll be buddies with Rehnquist in no time.
• Keeping the Faith: A Cultural History of the U.S. Supreme Court, by John E. Semonche.

10.81 ...and Not So Supremes
• Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption, and Incompetence on the Bench, by Max Boot. An eye-opener.
• Picking Federal Judges: Lower Court Selection from Roosevelt Through Reagan, by Sheldon Goldman.

10.9 A few cool lawyer types
• Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge, by Gerald Gunther. One of the best Justices we never had. It's available in paperback or hardcover.
• Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom, by Arthur Weinberg (editor), William O. Douglas, and Clarence Darrow.
• The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., by Ollie W. Holmes & Rick Posner. Two drinkin' buddies o' mine, dontcha' know? Holmes is available in paperback or hardcover.
• Abe Fortas: A Biography, by Laura Kalman.
• The World of Benjamin Cardozo: Personal Values and the Judicial Process, by Richard Polenberg.
• Black's Law: A Criminal Lawyer Reveals His Defense Strategies in Four Cliffhanger Cases, by Roy Black.
• Thurgood Marshall: Warrior at the Bar, Rebel on the Bench, by Michael D. Davis & Hunter R. Clark.
• Lawyer's Lawyer: The Life of John W. Davis, by William H. Harbaugh. A fascinating account of one of America's most respected lawyers...until he took on Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education.
• Hugo Black: A Biography, by Roger K. Newman.
• Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation, by Ken Gormley & Elliot Richardson. Known as the Special Prosecutor whom Nixon fired, an interesting read, particularly with the recent Whitewater mess.
• The Making of a Country Lawyer, by Gerry Spence.
• To Be a Trial Lawyer, by F. Lee Bailey.
• Robert G. Ingersoll: A Life, by Frank Smith.
• America's Adopted Son: The Remarkable Story of an Orphaned Immigrant Boy, by Samuel Nakasian.
• Carol Weiss King: Human Rights Lawyer, 1895-1952, by Ann Fagan Ginger & Louis H. Pollak.
• Gandhi: A Life, by Yogesh Chadha. A remarkable life, and, yes, a lawyer.
• Cowboy Justice: Tale of a Texas Lawman, by Jim Gober, et al.
• Mulligan's Law: The Wit and Wisdom of William Hughes Mulligan, by William Hughes and Jr. Mulligan.

10.91 No Legal Category for THIS one:
• Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Nope, not a lawyer, but a scientific genius of Einstein and Tesla's caliber -- who's been effectively written out of history by neglect. Perhaps because his genius was focused on the practical (he was the brains behind General Electric) and because of his ugliness (he was so grossly deformed, our immigration folks tried to keep him out) and because of his solitude (because of his deformity and loneliness, he decided not to have children, kept reptiles to ward off visitors, and adopted an apprentice's family only late in his life), the only biography I've seen is a(n old) book written for children. There's also an academic bio (also out-of-print). Too bad. His life (1865-1923) was more interesting than either Einstein or Tesla. Worth tracking down a copy of either bio. [TJM]
  

10.905 Non-Law Bios:
• Patton: A Genius for War, by Carlo D'Este.
• The Nightingale's Song, by Robert Timberg. A fascinating story of five Naval Academy graduates who later became national figures.

10.92 Internet Law
• Net Law: How Lawyers Use the Internet, by Paul S. Jacobsen.
• Cyberlaw: The Law of the Internet, by Jonathan Rosenoer.
• Internet and Online Law, by Kent D. Stuckey.
• Law on the Net, by Albin Renauer (ed.) and James L. Evans.

10.93 ...Those Funny Lawyers
• Blanche Knott's Truly Tasteless Lawyer Jokes, by Blanche Knott. Funny. (...and, yes, completely lacking in taste.)
• 500 Great Lawyer Jokes, by Jeff Rovin.

10.94 Miscellany
• A Guide to America's Sex Laws, by Richard A. Posner & Katharine B. Silbaugh (eds).
• Bodies of Law, by Alan Hyde. An interesting look at the law applied to personalty -- personal personalty, that is.
• Disorder in the Court: The Law According to Charles Bragg. Calendar featuring an excellent artist, known to many lawyers as the artworks on certain law school commercial outlines.