Thursday, February 01, 2007

Preparing for Law School: Reading Update

So, I have set aside A History of American Law for now in favor of Law 101: Everything You Need to Know about the American Legal System, which contains a very broad overview of the subjects taught during the first year of law school. I think this book is what I was looking for -- something that will familiarize me with the concepts and terms that I will be learning, without being too heavy or going into too much detail. But I also ordered a few books to go a little more in depth on the classes I will be taking in my first semester: Concepts and Case Analysis in the Law of Contracts, Torts in a Nutshell, and Civil Procedure in a Nutshell. I think these four books are going to be the extent of my preparation in terms of trying to partially pre-learn what I will be learning in law school. I also will be reading several books on skills that I will need for law school -- Introduction to the Study and Practice of Law in a Nutshell, Getting to Maybe, An Introduction to Legal Reasoning and Academic Legal Writing:. The rest of my reading will be for background (Gideon's Trumpet), about issues I am interested in (The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care), or just for fun (The Best of Rumpole). See all the books I have so far here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

do not follow the advice in Planet law school - that guy is just crazy. The best books to read if you really want to read something are law school confidential, getting to maybe, and law school insider. Don't read any outlines or review style books yet, those will just confuse you and you really dont need to know everything in them, only what your professor emphasizes.