Reading and Viewing for New Law Students

Click Here for Reading List for New Students Printable Document.

The Law School Experience

One-L, by Scott Turow (Warner 1997). One student’s experience as a first-year law student at Harvard. Turow’s account is more realistic than the popular movie, The Paper Chase.

Letters from Law School : The Life of a Second-Year Law Student
by Lawrence Dieker Jr. (Writer’s Club 2000). What law school is like once you get past your first-year exams.

Law Study Guides. The following books will give you information and strategies for studying, briefing cases, time management, exams, and other aspects of law school.

The Complete Law School Companion : How to Excel at America's Most Demanding Post-Graduate Curriculum (John Wiley & Sons, 1992).
by Jeff Deaver, Jeffery Deaver.

Planet Law School : What You Need to Know (Before You Go)...but Didn't Know to Ask by Atticus Falcon (Fine Print 1998).

Law School Confidential : The Complete Law School Survival Guide by Students, for Students by Robert H. Miller (Griffin Trade 2000).

Law School Without Fear : Strategies for Success by Helene S. Shapo, Marshall S. Shapo (Foundation Press 1998).

Introduction to the Study & Practice of Law in a Nutshell by Kenney F. Hegland (West 2000).

Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study by Karl N. Llewellyn (Oceana 1981). Based on lectures originally delivered by Professor Llewellyn to his first-year law students in 1929 at Columbia University School of Law. Informative, and highly intellectual.

Tort Litigation

A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr (Vintage 1996). The story of the Woburn, Massachusetts, toxic tort case.

The Buffalo Creek Disaster : How the Survivors of One of the Worst Disasters in Coal-Mining History Brought Suit Against the Coal Company--And Won
by Gerald M. Stern (Random House 1977).

Civil Rights

Simple Justice : The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger (Random House 1977). Fascinating (though long) account, of the history of Brown v. Board of Education. Particularly noteworthy for its explanation of how strategy can be used to develop precedent over time.

Gideon’s Trumpet, by Anthony Lewis (Vintage 1989). The story of the landmark Supreme Court decision favoring a criminal defendant’s right to appointed counsel.

Videos/Movies

The Paper Chase (1973)
Twelve Angry Men (1957)
Inherit the Wind (1960)
Judgment at Nuremburg (1961)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
My Cousin Vinny (1992)

Websites

http://www.ilrg.com/glasser.html. One lawyer’s advice to incoming first-year law students.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/ftrials.htm. Information about, and records from, some of the most famous trials in history.

http://stu.findlaw.com/prelaw/preparation.html. Links to pre-law resources.

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/. From here, link to “Legislative Process: House” for information on how federal laws are made.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/. Link to “hypertexts” and at the search field, type “Cardozo.” You will find a reproduction of important lectures delivered by Justice Benjamin Cardozo.

http://www.johnmarshall.edu. Link to “Campus Life,” and then to “Selected Readings”. There you will find “The Path of the Law,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., an address delivered at Boston University School of Law in 1897.

Read a Supreme Court Case

The Amistad (1841). Go to http://www.findlaw.com and click on “US Sup Ct” (under Laws: Cases and Codes). Then click on Amistad. Amistad involved a revolt by enslaved Africans aboard the Cuban schooner and the subsequent property status of the abducted Africans.

PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin (2001). Again, go to http://www.findlaw.com and click on “US Sup Ct” (under Laws: Cases and Codes). Go to “Opinion Summaries Archive” and search for “golf” at the bottom of the page. The first summary will link you to this opinion, which involves the application of the Americans With Disabilities Act to professional golf.