What are some good books to read to understand law?

“My Life In Court by Louis Nizer” is absolutely great. His other work is great reading as well. But, the one I am touting, is short stories…which I love anyway.

Nizer is was a straight shooter…and, a damn nice guy.

A book on Torts. Especially negligence, Proximate Cause and Foreseeability.

Also read the case: Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Company, 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99.

Yale has a website The Avalon Project that chronicles the law through documents in law, history and diplomacy.

I’ve gotten lost in that site more than a few times.

Going straight to primary sources and law texts is probably not a good idea if you’re looking for something light. But, if you want straightforward, law students generally use “examples and explanations” or something from the “nutshell” series on a specific topic – criminal, tort, property, contracts, intellectual property, etc. I like the “examples and explanations” as they provide fact patterns showing how each concept plays out.

Of course, if you’re looking for the classics, you can’t go wrong with the big yellow book History of American Law or Holmes’ The Common Law.

If you don’t want to go to law school, you can buy used hornbooks (similar to college text books) to help with your understanding. Don’t buy casebooks for independent study, only hornbooks. Also, get a set of bar review materials—that will be enlightening for you.

@perspicacious

Oooh – what do you mean by hornbooks? I would send someone to casebooks before a hornbook in most cases…hornbooks can be much more academic (detached from real life examples) so that without pairing them with the casebooks a reader can be left in the dark…

@iamthemob When studying case books you need discussion and authority because you are actually discovering the applicable law. This is the way law schools teach—it’s called the socratic method. Independent study needs to use books that actually teach the law—that is what a hornbook is—more like a college textbook. They are available in all law school subjects. A person who is just reading and studying because they are interested will be better served with a hornbook. They have plenty of cases included in the readings to see how law is applied. If you just tell a non-law-student to start reading casebooks, they will never figure out exactly what the law is and how it changes through other cases. Definitely refer people who are not in law school to hornbooks on the subjects which interest them.

Also used bar review material (such as Barbri, PMBR, or Micromash) would be a good way to get an overview as well.

@perspicacious

Sorry – I meant more along the lines of “which hornbooks” more than what they are. My property hornbook, for instance, was denser and less clear than my casebook. Hornbooks can be far, far too dense to get a clear and basic understanding of that area of the law – I would flip through one before committing to it.

Casebooks can be more clear in some cases, as they show the law as applied to facts.

But they are an option – look at them along with the other study guides outlined above, plus I think nolo.com is good at giving a straight-forward answer. The bar review materials are a good bet too – but are state-specific for the wider variety of topics and are less generally available (unless you know some recent law school grads, of course).

@iamthemob The bar review material includes both multi-state and state-specific materials, so she/he should buy material that includes his own state. A person who is not in law school trying to learn the law from casebooks would be impossible in my opinion. For independent study one needs to study something that explains what the law is, how it is used and applied, and case excerpts.

I’m an attorney, so thanks, but no thanks, I don’t need to search websites.

I recommend hornbooks over casebooks for literally every subject to anyone who wants to independently study American law.

@perspicacious – sorry, that wasn’t all addressed to you. Just the first sentence really. The rest was to the OP and all others reading it. So – I wasn’t telling you to go look at the websites…although as an attorney, I would hope you would find all resources helpful.

To ALL – as I had stated, much of the material in a bar review kit contains state-specific materials – not all, but that was never the claim (e.g., Texas has required a study of energy law, and if you have materials from Louisiana watch out, because they have a civil code based legal structure). So be clear on whether you are studying a multi-state (as constitutional law generally is) or state-specific (as family law generally is).

As an attorney myself, if you are looking for something light or introductory like the OP here, I would look at something more along the Examples and Explanations series than what is more generally understood as a Hornbook (note – if it has a green cover, it’s probably fairly dense), but look around and see what time you’re looking to invest.

Before hitting the hornbooks, I would start here. The author was my professor when I was in law school and his approach to analyzing and arguing legal issues has never failed me.