Required Texts For Law School

In buying textbooks, the first consideration is whether to purchase a new or used copy. Several factors are relevant, the most important being the cost. Law books are very ex¬pensive and therefore many students prefer used copies', which often run about half the price of new ones. However, one must be careful to buy the correct edition, since the used book market will be flooded with out-of-date editions of the same text.

Another point for the student to consider is whether he plans to keep the book or resell it at the end of the course. Many students believe that there is little value in keeping casebooks after a course is completed because the format makes these books only marginally useful as reference works in following years. New books usually will have some resale value at the end of the semester (although even well preserved books will bring at most only about half of the orig¬inal cost). Books showing indications of several users often have little or no resale value.


A further consideration is that many students would rather read clean and unmarked pages while studying. The cases in used texts are often too cluttered for quick review. Used casebooks produce a temptation to read only the parts underlined by the book's previous owner. In addition, a clean copy is simply much easier on the eyes. These factors must be weighed according to students' own preferences.

1) Hornbooks

Any legal bookstore will carry, in addition to scores of casebooks, a multitude of one-volume treatises on various subjects of law. Such works are commonly called "horn¬books." They are often useful in alleviating a student's confusion because they clearly state the rules of law within a particular subject.

In US Law education hornbooks are one volume legal dissertations, authored specifically for law students on subjects required by law school curriculum. Hornbooks sum up and go over the main points and explain the law in an unambiguous area.

In the case method, students read cases and synthesize them into an analytic pattern by means of the Socratic discussion that occurs in class. This method places great reliance on the students' ability to pull together the underlying legal principles on their own. However, every class discussion is not always perfectly clear and a particular student may feel the need to consult some reference source in order to straighten out some remaining point of confusion that the class did not adequately resolve. A hornbook is an excellent source for this purpose. Such books can be invaluable aids, and students can use them in various ways.

However, a word of caution - hornbooks should never be considered a substitute for reading the cases and using one's own analytical ability to extract the relevant rules of law. Turning to the hornbook first is like checking an answer key before even trying to work a set of problems. Certainly the answers can be found more quickly by turning to the key, but little progress is made toward learning how to solve the problems on one's own. Further, the rules presented in a hornbook are necessarily rather general: reliance on them, rather than, on developing personal analytical abilities will leave the student unequipped to handle unique situations, which he will en¬counter in class, on exams, and in legal practice.

2) Commercial Outlines

Commercial outlines are similar to hornbooks in substance but differ in format. These outlines can be useful aids in pulling a course together or in making one's own outline, but students are again cautioned not to over rely on them. Their chief advantage over hornbooks is that they are cheaper and much briefer, usually because they omit the copious case citation found in hornbooks. A major drawback, however, is that commercial outlines, even more than the hornbooks, suffer from a tendency to make overly broad or misleading generalizations concerning the law. This shortcoming results from two factors—the outlines attempt drastically to condense the materials, and frequently their authors possess less prestigious academic qualifications. Hornbooks are usually written by distinguished professors; outlines are generally authored by publishing companies.

3) Commercially Prepared Briefs

Commercially prepared or "canned" case briefs should be avoided. The chief benefit of briefing a case lies in making the brief, not in having it available. Furthermore, canned briefs sometimes incorrectly summarize both the facts and the law of an individual case. Many professors admonish their students not to use canned briefs and verbally assault those who persist in doing so. Canned briefs are an extremely poor substitute for reading and briefing the cases on one's own; any student who heavily relies on them is robbing himself of the very core of legal training.

4) Legal Dictionaries

Students, who purchase a legal dictionary before they arrive at law school, or when buying their other textbooks before classes begin, often decide later that it was not a particularly useful investment. Although dictionaries look impressive and can be valuable for reference purposes, they are generally quite expensive. Considering that most necessary terms are defined within the assigned readings, a student may use a dictionary only infrequently, and several copies are always available in the law library. The student may feel, therefore, that money spent on a dictionary is spent unwisely.

Someone who regularly looks things up in a dictionary will probably enjoy a law dictionary; but a person who rarely consults a dictionary will not suddenly change his habits just because he is in law school. Buying an expensive dictionary is really a long-term investment. The student will not use it as much in his first year as he will in his second and third years; the practicing lawyer, in turn, will probably use a dictionary more than a law student will. A good course for the student to follow would be for him to wait until he decides that a dictionary is needed, and then to buy one.

If the student does want the complete legal dictionary, Black's Law Dictionary is unquestionably the one to buy. A dictionary fanatic will enjoy rummaging around in this book. It contains a wealth of information that most people may never have occasion to use. For the beginning law student's purposes, however, Law Dictionary, written by Steven H. Gifis and published by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. should suffice. It is inexpensive and brief, yet is well researched and will be adequate for most uses.

Conclusion

Equipped with the necessary textbooks, and at most one hornbook or outline per course, the student will be well prepared to begin reading his or her reading daily assignments.