40 Books Every Attorney Should Read

What makes a good lawyer's library? What books—what 40 books, say—should every attorney read before he goes to that great big law library in the sky? What constitutes the JD canon?
 

To answer these questions, we compiled a list of more than a hundred law-related books in half a dozen categories—from Classic Literature (Shakespeare, Melville) to Legal Theory (Tribe, Holmes).
 
Are our final choices debatable? No. Everyone knows lists of this sort are utterly objective and beyond question. These are the books you must read. The essentials. Bar none. Unless, of course, you know of any other good ones, in which case, let us know. We're always on the lookout for a good read.
 
CLASSIC LITERATURE
 
The Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare (c. 1594)
One of the master's most performed plays is at its core a contract dispute over a loan—with the merchant's life hanging in the balance. The heroine, Portia, disguises herself as a lawyer and saves her client on a technicality. But it is her eloquent speech about the "quality of mercy" that we remember. Portia argues that when justice is seasoned by mercy, it transcends earthly power and takes on a force more like God's.
 
Bleak House
Charles Dickens (1852-53)
Dickens goes after the English legal system—pretty much all of it—in what some call his finest work, a sad story about two innocent children who grow old as the settlement of their inheritance grinds through the courts. Just how rotten is the system? By the time the matter is resolved, legal fees have eaten up the children's fortune—and their lives.
 
Billy Budd, Sailor
Herman Melville (1924; posthumous)
Melville takes to the sea—the story is set in the British Navy of 1797—where a sailor faces a court-martial and may be put to death. Capital punishment is on trial here, but Melville also explores even deeper legal waters: What happens when law trumps justice? Is it possible that law springs from vengeance?
 
The Crucible
Arthur Miller (1953)
It's the Salem witch trials Miller writes about, but his real subject is another witch-hunt: McCarthyism. The award-winning drama made its debut on Broadway in 1953, at the height of the House Un-American Activities Committee's attempt to root out communists. Through the lens of historical allegory, Miller shows how political pressure and mob hysteria can lead to terrible acts of injustice.
 
Inherit the Wind
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (1955)
This dramatization of the Scopes monkey trial centers on the still-controversial legal question of whether Darwinism or creationism should be taught in schools. Historians sniff at this version, which takes wide license with the facts. But Lawrence and Lee's book provides a more emotionally rich and dramatic telling of the story and its underlying issues than a strict adherence to the facts ever could.
 
The Apology
Plato (c. 400 B.C.)
Think of it as the ultimate defense argument. Accused of corrupting the young men of Athens, Socrates makes it clear (as Plato retells it) that if seeking the truth corrupts the young, he's guilty. The work is a stirring defense of a man's life and a hard look at what it is to judge a person.
 
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)
Impoverished Raskolnikov murders an old woman pawnbroker for her money, kills her sister who walks in after the crime, then slowly but surely comes to see that nothing justifies murder. The book's greatness resides in Dostoevsky's deep insight into the twisted psychology of a killer.
 
Pudd'nhead Wilson
Mark Twain (1894)
A lawyer rocks a small town in antebellum Missouri when he discovers, during a murder trial, that two young men (one a slave owner's son, the other the son of a slave) had been switched in their infancy. Through the use of fingerprinting, Pudd'nhead determines that the real killer isn't the man raised by the slave, accused of the murder, but the man raised by the slave owner. Twain explores nature versus nurture and points out the real crime: how racial prejudice corrupts justice.
 
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee (1960)
The hero Atticus Finch is the perfect antidote to lawyer jokes. A small-town Southern attorney during the Depression, Finch defends a black man accused of raping a white woman and incurs the town's wrath for doing so. Told through the eyes of Atticus's young daughter, it's a tale about bigotry, kindness, and cruelty, and doing the right thing. Sentimental? Yes, but powerful just the same.
 
Oresteia
(Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides)
Aeschylus (458 B.C.)
The Sopranos have nothing on the Greeks in this bloody, revenge-fueled trilogy that raises the question: If the culture demands that you avenge a family member's murder, is it free choice or fate that determines your actions? A centuries-old take on social environment as a cause of criminal behavior.

A Jury of Her Peers
Susan Glaspell (1917)
In this simple but striking short story, two women and their husbands (one of them the sheriff) arrive at the home of a murdered man. When the women find evidence that could implicate the victim's wife, they hide it, sensing that the woman had just cause for the crime but that an all-male jury won't see it that way. The story predates the battered-wife defense—and larger issues of gender and justice—by decades.
 
The Trial
Franz Kafka (1925)
A man is charged with something, but he doesn't know what, so he can't prove his innocence. The legal theme centers on the frightening power of making criminal accusations. The philosophical theme involves nothing less than the nature of guilt. Put them together, and you have a disturbing look at the hopelessness inherent in totalitarian legal systems, where, as in life itself, you may never learn what you did wrong.
 
POPULAR FICTION
 
The Firm
John Grisham (1991)
A young hotshot attorney is lured to a prestigious law firm in the South, where he discovers that a creeping institutional malfeasance lies just behind the mahogany walls. The ultimate legal page-turner from the master of the genre, as well as a morality tale about the dark side of Big Law.
 
Presumed Innocent
Scott Turow (1987)
When a beautiful Chicago DA turns up dead, her (married) co-worker and former lover is the prime suspect. What follows is a classic whodunit and an unflattering look at the criminal justice system, where corruption and incompetence grease the wheels of justice.
 
Anatomy of a Murder
Robert Traver (1958)
In this courtroom drama, written by a former northern Michigan county prosecutor and state supreme court justice, a lone lawyer fights to save a capital defendant accused of committing a vengeance murder after his wife was raped. What lifts Anatomy above other "courtroom classics" are the spot-on portrayals of the attorney and the small-town courtroom.
 
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Tom Wolfe (1990)
In this cutting satire about the intersection of law and politics in late-20th-century New York, a hit-and-run accident claims as its victim not only the black man who was hit but also the "master of the universe" investment banker who thought he could get away with it. Wolfe's "new journalism" style, here translated to fiction, brought comparisons to Dickens.
 
The Rumpole Books
John Mortimer (1978)
With deft and witty prose, Mortimer creates a British barrister, Horace Rumpole, who's as memorable and entertaining a character as Sherlock Holmes. The ongoing series paints trial practice as the wonderful and maddening thing it is. Rumpole's pithy and amusing observations can warm even a hardened litigator's heart.
 
FAMOUS CASES
 
A Civil Action
Jonathan Harr (1995)
In a David-versus-Goliath legal battle, plaintiff's attorney Jan Schlichtmann takes on the W.R. Grace Corporation and Beatrice Foods. Schlichtmann is a Porsche-driving crusader who hopes to win a whopper settlement for a group of cancer-stricken families but ends up losing nearly everything. The book is a lucid tale of a complex case and a lesson about the difference one man can make.
 
In Cold Blood
Truman Capote (1965)
On the surface, In Cold Blood is a basic true-crime story. A small-town Kansas family of four is killed by two drifters; a manhunt, trial, and executions ensue. But it's the telling that makes this a work of art. Capote's reporting captures every detail and nuance of the story, and his writing style created a whole new genre: literary nonfiction.
 
Gideon's Trumpet
Anthony Lewis (1964)
The poor in America have always been guaranteed the right to counsel, right? Wrong. But in 1962, an innocent Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon wrote to the Supreme Court and established what we now know as that fundamental right. Lewis, the former New York Times columnist, delivers a poignant account of how Gideon's case became a Constitutional landmark. In the process, he provides a quick study on how American democracy works.
 
The Run of His Life
Jeffrey Toobin (1996)
Written by the former assistant U.S. attorney turned New Yorker writer, this is simply the best book on the most notorious legal action of the century—the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Taking a distanced, journalistic approach, Toobin scrubs away the hype and reveals how the different factors—celebrity, domestic violence, race—influenced the infamous verdict.
 
Simple Justice:
The History of Brown v. Board of Education
Richard Kluger (1975)
Is there a more important Supreme Court decision than Brown? The list of candidates would be short. Simple Justice is a comprehensive history of the historic decision that marked the beginning of the end of legal segregation. The path to Brown was long and winding. Kluger not only recounts what happened but helps explain why it happened by placing the decision in its broader context—the history of race relations in America.
 
The Best Defense
Alan Dershowitz (1982)
In this memoir/legal-adventure tale, the famed criminal defense attorney takes the reader inside some of his most compelling cases, such as defending the right to show pornography, defending the right to protest the Vietnam War, and defending F. Lee Bailey on charges of mail conspiracy. Dershowitz's candid recollections make fun reading and show the American legal system in action, warts and all.
 
LEGAL THEORY
 
American Constitutional Law
Laurence H. Tribe (1987)
Was the Constitution meant to be flexible and subject to judicial interpretation? (Tribe says yes.) Or was it meant to be set in stone, changed only when the legislature votes to change it? At 1,778 pages, this is the bible on the subject, written by the leading contemporary authority.
 
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court
Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong (1979)
The Burger Court heard some of the toughest cases in Supreme Court history. From 1969 to 1978, the court handed down rulings on such difficult issues as the death penalty, school busing, the Nixon tapes, abortion, and obscenity. Woodward and Armstrong were criticized for recreating conversations from secondhand sources, but their methods yielded rare behind-the-scenes insight into how the nation's most powerful legal institution works.
 
The Common Law
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1881)
Holmes was a giant among giants whose influence on American law is unsurpassed. The Common Law, drawn from a series of lectures by the iconic Supreme Court justice, is the guide to Holmes's legal thinking. One hundred twenty-one years later, lawyers, judges, and scholars still read it, study it, and marvel at it.
 
The Death of Contract
Grant Gilmore (1974)
Taking on Holmes is a daunting task, but Gilmore, the late Yale Law professor, is up to the challenge. This small but powerful work focuses specifically on contracts, but it's really a way of responding (affectionately) to the ideas about American jurisprudence put forth in The Common Law.
 
Economic Analysis of Law
Richard A. Posner (1973)
Posner wrote the book—and this is it—on the "Chicago school" of law and economics, a.k.a. applying economic thinking to legal decisions to achieve socially desirable outcomes. Some say the University of Chicago scholar and federal circuit court judge identified the one true way to think about the law. Others call his theories rigid, ideological bunk. Either way, this stands as the key text on one of the major schools of legal thought today.
 
Law and the Modern Mind
Jerome Frank (1930)
In this seminal 20th-century work, Frank champions the theory of legal realism—that laws should live, breathe, and change, just as humans do. Lawyers and judges who free themselves from the shackles of legal precedent, Frank says, will achieve "the modern mind."
 
May It Please the Court:
The Most Significant Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court Since 1955
Peter Irons, Stephanie Guitton, Editors (1993)
Reading the transcripts of landmark cases collected here makes you feel as if you're sitting in the Supreme Court gallery. These are the cases that shape our lives: Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. Arizona, U.S. v. Nixon, and many more. Irons fought the Court himself to publish the book. The source material was in the public record, but it was not supposed to be reproduced.
 
The Spirit of Liberty
Learned Hand (1952)
Hand may very well be the biggest, best judicial mind never to be tapped for the Supreme Court. Spirit is a collection of his papers and rulings. Feel the weight of a genuine intellect at work as Hand speaks eloquently on such core issues as judicial independence.
 
Taking Rights Seriously
Ronald Dworkin (1977)
Dworkin, the leading liberal legal scholar, launches a direct attack on two concepts that have dominated modern legal thinking: utilitarianism and legal positivism. In their place, Dworkin argues for a system of laws based on individual human rights.
 
Feminism Unmodified
Catharine A. MacKinnon (1987)
These controversial essays by the preeminent feminist scholar explore the roots of women's oppression in society and how women themselves contribute to it. Judicial decisions reflecting MacKinnon's ideas have surfaced in sexual harassment law and other areas.
 
PEOPLE
 
Cardozo
Andrew L. Kaufman (1998)
World War II marks the line between early-20th-century and late-20th-century legal thought. Benjamin Cardozo, who served on the Supreme Court from 1932 until 1938, helped connect the two. Among other things, Cardozo rewrote tort law and redefined such principles as negligence and assumption of risk. Kaufman's biography mixes legal and personal analysis to illustrate how Cardozo did what he did, and why his legacy endures.
 
Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge
Gerald Gunther (1994)
Gunther offers deep and up-close insight into the life and work of the great American jurist that only a top Con-law scholar and former Hand law clerk could. Hand was a staunch advocate of judicial restraint, and he was intensely involved with the public issues of his time, especially unpopular speech. Among the notable battles discussed here: Hand's speaking out vigorously for dissenters during World War I and the McCarthy era.
 
The Story of My Life
Clarence Darrow (1932)
Darrow is a legal legend, and here he writes about his most storied cases—the Scopes monkey trial, Leopold and Loeb, and others. His insights into trial tactics are every bit as brilliant as you would expect from a man who could convince just about anyone of just about anything.
 
Law Stories: Law, Meaning, and Violence
Gary Bellow and Martha Minow (1996)
Law Stories is a collection of first-person accounts by attorneys working on public-service cases, including some from Harvard Law School's Legal Services Center, which Bellow founded. The individual voices of the lawyers and their clients put a human face on such tough legal issues of the day as custody, parental rights, and victims' rights.
 
Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961
Mark V. Tushnet (1994)
The definitive biography of the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Making Civil Rights Law reveals how Marshall led the fight for racial equality under the law, starting with his days as the NAACP litigator who argued Brown v. Board of Education. This thorough account of how Marshall and others brought about a Constitutional revolution is an elemental piece of American legal history and an inspiring portrait of the man who made it happen.
 
LAW SCHOOL
 
Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional Change
Lani Guinier with Michelle Fine and Jane Balin (1997)
How is it that women enter law school with the same grades as men but wind up, three years later, behind them? Based on a study of nearly a thousand students (male and female) at the University of Pennsylvania Law School between 1987 and 1992, Becoming Gentlemen provides a clear and disturbing answer: Law schools treat women worse than men.
 
Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System
Duncan Kennedy (1983)
Like Mao's "little red book," this stinging indictment of legal education is slim but revolutionary. In fact, it's often referred to as "Duncan Kennedy's Little Red Book." A Harvard law professor and a leader of the critical legal studies movement, Kennedy argues that law schools are essentially corporate-lawyer factories, not places of free legal thinking.

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