Going to law school this fall? We’ve got a list of summer reading to make sure that you’re primed and ready to go. We also suggest some pleasure reading to keep your mind agile. Remember, law school is a reading-heavy enterprise. You might not get a chance to read a novel for fun for a while, so you’d better do it now!
However, this law school reading list is mostly designed to make sure you are ready to meet the challenge of law school exams, note-taking, and case briefing. Read up on what to expect in law school, and you’ll have a little less pre-law anxiety, making it easy to enjoy the summer!
PRE-LAW SUMMER READING LIST
the best books to read before starting law school
Getting to Maybe
This is the essential guide that nearly everyone reads to get ready for law school exams.
Skim it once now to get an idea what exams are like- this will help you focus on what’s important when you start class in the fall.
Reread it as exams approach. If you only read one thing on this list, make sure it’s this book. It provides a critical first step to thinking like a lawyer.
Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About The American Legal System
Kick-start your understanding of the law here. This book is pretty basic, but it gives you an excellent primer on stuff you’ll be learning in much more depth 1L year.
Read this book in part because it will show you how little you know now, and give you a bar to see how far you come after your 1L year.
Just because it’s an introductory work doesn’t mean it’s for the simple-minded; this book is an excellent read laced with helpful, intelligent analysis.
Law School Confidential: A Complete Guide to The Law School Experience
This book tells you everything you need to know to navigate 1L year successfully, from how to brief cases to how to prepare outlines for exams.
Just a head’s up, it’s advice on case briefing is perhaps a little overboard. Rather than devoting yourself to following the book in all its details, I would read the book more to get an idea of what you should do.
As you actually start law school, be flexible and seek lots of advice until you find an approach that works for you.
24 Hours with 24 Lawyers
This one was a recommendation by Anne Levine, the well-known admissions consultant and author of The Law School Admissions Game (the book I recommend most often for learning about the law school admissions process).
In the book, 24 lawyers in all sorts of careers from JAG and Venture Capital to take you through a typical day in their lives.
Read this, and you’ll have a much better idea of what lawyers do on a day to day basis. It’s the ideal way to start thinking about what path you might wish to take in the law.
1L by Scott Turow
This is Josh’s recommendation, a fantastic book about a Harvard Law student’s first year written by the well-known practicing lawyer and fiction writer.
It was published over 25 years ago, but still perfectly captures the struggles and emotions of life as a 1L. Though it’s not the book that the movie the ‘The Paper Chase’ was based on, it’s captures the same harrowing psychological drama of the law school experience.
A warning: fans of faster reads may find it a bit too meditative. Still, I think the type of person that thrives in law school will find this an exciting read.
Anonymous Lawyer
Anonymous Lawyer is a parody book, in the form of a blog ostensibly written by a partner at a major law firm, covering his plot to take over the position of managing partner.
Though it’s fiction, it was so accurate that everybody thought it was about their law firm and was written by their boss.
Nobody is safe from the author’s sarcasm. I promise it will have you doubled over laughing.
The Elements of Style
Although this book is not specific to lawyers or law school students, it is perhaps the most well-regarded and oft-read guide to writing in the English language.
Most writers look on it as a kind of bible. Read it, and you will be in a much better position to become an accomplished legal writer.
An Introduction to Legal Reasoning
Written by Edward Levi, the now-deceased famed legal professor who taught at the University of Chicago, this book is required reading in many “Elements of the Law” courses.
The book teaches students about various themes that run through the law. It’s a little dry but very informative. Especially read it if your school does not have an “Elements of The Law” class.
Read a Book About the City You of Your Law School
When we were about to start at the University of Chicago Law, the school recommended we read Devil in the White City, a non-fiction “novel” about the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and the serial killer H.H. Holmes who was active at that time.
Reading a book about the history of your new city will orient you and give you a deeper feel for the place. If you are having trouble picking something, call your school’s admissions office for a recommendation or check their site to see if they already make one. I guarantee they won’t find this question silly- they are likely passionate about their city and want to help you get to know it.
26 Comments
Hi, I want to study law. I have got great passion for it to the point that every one of my family supported me. Please tell me which books should I be reading in order to help me achieve my goal when I got admitted into the university.
Grace,
If you are just getting started & you haven’t gotten into law school yet, the first place to start is here: https://lawschooli.com/lsat-prep-books-self-study/
The LSAT is the single most important factor in your law school applications, so focus your resources on those books.
Once you’ve already gotten into law school, the list above will give you something to read the summer before law school to help familiarize yourself with the law school experience.
Thanks,
Josh
Your two lists on your blog are awesome! I’m steadily making my way through them (read 1L of a Ride, OneL, and Law 101–all were great! 24 Hours with 24 Lawyers is good so far, but I’m a little sad that so few of the 24 are women). I would add Fred Schauer’s Thinking Like a Lawyer, which I have really been enjoying and which so far three profs from different schools have recommended to me. I’ve also been reading Justice: A Reader and following along in Michael Sandel’s course on Harvard’s website and it’s been great just for getting broad philosophical perspectives on justice that I expect to encounter in case reports haha (though admittedly some of the older texts are dense)
I’m glad you are enjoying some of the same books that I loved, and thank you for the suggestions! I hope you don’t mind I’m bumping this comment back up to the top. Hope you are doing great!
Best,
Josh
FANTASTIC advice and suggestions. Thank you so much for putting such effort into helping us prospective law students!
I’ve reserved my seat for the LSAT, and I want to learn/know as much as possible.
Again, thank you!
Thanks, Dawn. It is my pleasure to help the next generation of young lawyers on their way up. Good luck on the LSAT & let mw know if you need any help along the way!
Best,
Joshua Craven
I’m just a kid who’s dream is to be lawyer and I hope these law books help so that whenever I tell my friends I want to go to Harvard law school they don’t laugh at me
Never let anyone laugh at you for working toward your dreams. When I was born my parent’s lived in a trailer. I didn’t get come from a family of lawyers. I have a degree from a state school. I worked hard, got a good GPA & did well on the LSAT. That was enough to get me into a top 5 law school. You can get there too. You WILL get there. It isn’t an unattainable dream. I did it, and so can you.
Fantastic share. I’ve read 3-4 books from the list till now and each one of them taught me something extraordinary. Will pick up the rest soon.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Glad you are enjoying them, David! Thanks for the comment!
Good to have a preview
Law school is for suckers. It is the second most expensive professional degree out there. Only a degree in medicine cost more. The thing is that doctors are in short supply and in high demand, whereas demand for legal services in the U.S. is at an all time low and the number of suckers with JDs is at an all time high. Most (that is, more than 50%) of these suckers are going to be paying back these loans until retirement. Possibly, some of you will inherit some of these loans to their children after they die. Some of them (and it might be YOU) are going to ruin their lives by defaulting on these loans.
Your generation had been warned multiple times. DO NOT GO TO LAW SCHOOL AS IT IS NOT WORTH IT. And yet, they keep going… This phenomenon had turned me away from people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who support loan forgiveness for consenting adults that have ALL INFORMATION THEY NEED TO MAKE A MATURE AND INFORMED DECISION.
Law school certainly isn’t for everyone. I won’t argue with you there. However, I do have a couple of points that need to be made:
1) You should not take out anything other than federal student loans to pay for law school. No, federal student loans are not passed down to your children. They do not inherit them. Federal student loans are discharged at death. To suggest otherwise is simply false, and I have an obligation to correct that misinformation.
2) I’m a HUGE proponent of studying for as long and as hard as you have to on the LSAT in order to earn a score that will allow you to minimize the costs of your legal education. I constantly preach the importance of a high LSAT score in the law school admissions and scholarship negotiation process.
3) I agree that lower-ranked law schools, especially T4 law schools (e.g., Cooley/Florida Coastal/Arizona Summit/etc.) are very unlikely to be wise financial investments. If you are paying $60,000+ per year for 3 years to go to a school with an average starting salary of $45,000… that debt is going to weigh on you for a long time.
4) On the other hand, many high-quality law schools, though they are also quite expensive, can easily be worth it in terms of lifetime earnings expectations. For example, at UChicago, where I went, students borrow $156k on average and earn $173k on average. Yes, this is reasonably significant debt to service, but the expected earnings are more than sufficient to service the debt without difficultly.
5) I highly encourage everyone to do lots of research into the employment outcomes of any law school you are considering going to. Don’t assume that a given school is worth it just because it is “law school” – not all law schools are equal. However, it is equally nonsensical to say that all law schools are bad and no one should go to law school. Yale Law and Whittier Law are not the same thing. I just want to encourage a nuanced approach to this sort of evaluation.
You’re an idiot. A 3 year associate in my office makes base salary of $255,000 and just recieved a $60,000 bonus. He is 32 and made over $300k last year. I’d say it is money well spent.
It’s rare that law students come out of school making enough money to pay their student loans. You have to be passionate and really good at what you do. With the number of people in law school, the idea they will all be passionate and talented is a low number. So happy for the one person succeeding in your office though.
One case study of a single success has nothing to do with whether most people fail and are never heard from again. I bet the person you’re talking about is smart enough to know that.
If you actually*
You’re not wrong
If you herd. think a 17 or 18 year old has enough education or resources to sign student loans and know fully what they are going through with, it is YOU that is the sucker here.
Hi good day I am a graduate Paralegal Studies at Universidad De Manila from Philippines,I graduated from the university since year 2014 and have being working as a Service Crew For Fart time to support my study but until now i dont experience about my course because i dont have confidence to try applying legal position but now i want to study law school but i dont have money to study o to buy a book hope u have a PDF copy to send me for free…
Hi, I am a graduate of Human Communication from Lagos, Nigeria with a G.P 3.14. I graduated from the university since year 2011 and have being working as a primary school teacher but now i want to further my education in law. Is it possible to apply for my masters degree in law and what are the admission requirement? I will appreciate a quick response. Thanks. F.B
Yes sure.when you are extremely prepared you can further more
Hi, I am First Year Law Student. I am Myanmar Civilian. So,I am studying the law at Dagon University in Yangon in Myanmar. In our legal education, we must study about Five Years to get L.L.B. I would like to know is which books are recommended to read for each years. The books that are related with the study of law.
If u have free times, come to our University and give us the advice about our legal education. We welcome.
Hi, I just recently decided that I want to go to law school. I have become obsessed with the idea and have this burning desire to make it come true. I’ve been a student athlete my whole life went to online high school and then got a full ride to play for University of Miami. At UM I had a 3.5 GPA majoring in economics. Athletics for me always came first so I never really fully dedicated myself to school. I was kind of cruising by. Fast forward two years and I decide to transfer to Purdue. Purdue academics were a huge surprise for me. Academics at Purdue are 10x tougher than that Miami. My first semester I did awful. Failed a class and got 3 B’s. (first time I fail a class). I had to change majors to remain eligible so I switched to Tourism management. I’m still considering my minor but it will probably be economics since I read that it helps have better performance on the LSAT. My second semester I had to take 6 classes, getting four high B’s and two C’s. I plan on retaking the class I failed so it doesn’t stay on my transcript. Without that class I stand at a 3.0 GPA. I know it is very low, but I still have 2 more years of school left. I have decided that academics will come first as it always should have. Do you think I have a chance to get into law school if I work my butt of for the next two years? Purdue is so rigorous its even ranked eight hardest school to receive an A in. By the way I know that a top tier school is most likely not possible. Will law schools take into consideration that I’ve been a student athlete at top division one schools? Please give me any thoughts or advice you may have. Thank you very much. I really appreciate any advice you have to give me.
With law being so closely related to politics, I would be interested to know what kind of political background or information you suggest a 1L should have before beginning law school.
Hi Kristen!
I’m a friend of Josh and Evan and a fellow UChicago Law School grad. I check out this site from time to time, so I thought I’d chime in here.
The answer to your question depends on what you mean by “politics.” You should be familiar with the basics of the American political structure – it might be worth dusting off the old textbook from AP US Government (or comparable college Intro to US Government). I’ll call this sort of limited background “Government 101.” Without being familiar with federalism, separation of powers, etc., you will be at a disadvantage not only in the more obviously government-oriented classes (e.g. Constitutional Law), but also meat-and-potato classes such as Civil Procedure and Criminal Law.
But I suspect that you are asking about a political background that would include knowledge of the parties, each party’s respective strength in federal, state and local political bodies, specific political issues, demographic trends, etc. I’m a political junkie, but if you don’t find the subject interesting, you really don’t have to have any particular background beyond “Government 101”. If you are like me and you would like to become as familiar as possible with politics in the broad sense of the word, I suggest that you spend time reading political news articles, opinion pieces, etc. Basically just keep up with current events – and reading books (or even just Wikipedia pages) on history would help as well. I was able to use my political interest in knowledge to my advantage in a number of classes, mostly electives, but also (to a lesser extent) mainstay 1L classes where policy questions appeared on the exam.
Again, though, I should emphasize that you don’t have to be a political junkie in order to do well in law school. I know more than a few successful friends both from law school and my firm who are politically apathetic and probably know very little about government and politics beyond “Government 101” and the top headline news.