Top Law Schools

Hi everyone.

What's the consensus on buying 1L books new vs used. Does the potential distraction of markings in the books outweigh the cost savings? What are you planning to do or what did you do in your 1L year and how did it work out for you?

Used is the way to go. And be sure to search on half.com. I was getting barely used books for about 80 whereas my school was selling them for 150. I got a semesters worth of books for 450 while other people spent twice as much. Check half.com and amazon used books.

My first semester I bought all my books new, second semester I bought almost all of them used. It's slightly annoying that people have already written and highlighted the cases, but unless you have one of those 17 highlighter systems it's not that big a deal. Just don't pay attention to the notes. When I had used books I found that the notes in the margins of a lot of my books were usually stupid and/or wrong.

I'm leaning toward new, I guess. Any other opinions/experiences?

This is my first semester, and I've bought almost all used books.

If you don't mind paying more for used books, check out the used books at the school's bookstore and find some with absolutely no markings or very minimal writing/highlighting. I saved about $60 on my Civ Pro book that way.

Otherwise, I bought many of my other books on Amazon and Half.com. If you order the "like new" books, you will usually receive almost a brand new book at half price or less than the bookstore. I was lucky that none of my expensive text books were new editions.

At this point, the only thing to keep in mind about Amazon or Half.com is that the seller will probably mail via "Media Mail" which can take several days to arrive.

I buy mine new because I like to write a lot in my books. Also I don't have a consistent system of marking up my books, since there aren't any other marks in my books I don't have to worry about if I made the marks or not. For your first semester at law school, I would recommend new books while you are developing your own way of taking notes.

I buy supplements used though.

You guys actually BUY casebooks? Why? You have free Westlaw/Nexis, just print 'em out off of there. Better yet, buy those little ""High Court Summary" comic book things- there's nothing in an actual case worth reading, let alone paying for!

Most of the cases in casebooks are edited, if I printed it off Westlaw I'd have to read the whole thing. Besides you can usually sell the casebooks back at the end of the semester.

I use a highlighter system instead of briefing cases. Used books are very annoying if you're going to be doing something similar. That said, I did use a few used books and you can get by. It just makes the case more confusing and difficult to handle if you get called on.

Kilpatrick wrote: Besides you can usually sell the casebooks back at the end of the semester.

I was wondering if people sold their books back afterwards. You won't need these again, maybe to study for the bar? If you can sell them back, that's fantastic.

cinephile wrote:

Kilpatrick wrote: Besides you can usually sell the casebooks back at the end of the semester.

I was wondering if people sold their books back afterwards. You won't need these again, maybe to study for the bar? If you can sell them back, that's fantastic.

Definitely don't need them for anything ever again. A guy I work with who jsut graduated and took the bar said if you tried to study for the bar with a 1l casebook you would fail. The stuff in bar review courses will tell you what you need to know for the bar.

areyouinsane wrote:You guys actually BUY casebooks? Why? You have free Westlaw/Nexis, just print 'em out off of there. Better yet, buy those little ""High Court Summary" comic book things- there's nothing in an actual case worth reading, let alone paying for!

lol

Kilpatrick wrote:

cinephile wrote:

Kilpatrick wrote: Besides you can usually sell the casebooks back at the end of the semester.

I was wondering if people sold their books back afterwards. You won't need these again, maybe to study for the bar? If you can sell them back, that's fantastic.

Definitely don't need them for anything ever again. A guy I work with who jsut graduated and took the bar said if you tried to study for the bar with a 1l casebook you would fail. The stuff in bar review courses will tell you what you need to know for the bar.

Hahaha, good to know.

Buy used. You can usually save 50% or more. There is no need to buy new. You won't need them for the bar so sell them back on Amazon.

In general, is it a problem that people find out what they need too late to buy used online?

Also, is the resale value of bought-used books relative to bought-new books proportionate? What I mean is, if you buy a used book for $80, down from $150, how much can you resell it for at the end of the year? I figure the end cost for books can be a couple hundred bucks if you can resell them again.

Got same grades (A,A-,B+) in first semester as second semester 1L. Didn't buy books second semester. Go figure.

bought all my books used from half.com; great deals. i saved about 150 bucks on three books compared to the used price at the campus bookstore. the books are supposedly lightly written in/highlighted and i even got one of the books totally unmarked.

i'm using the saved money for supplements and other supplies.

Any of you guys move out of state? I'd love to buy my books used, but I won't be moving to school until just a few days before orientation. No address for Amazon/etc. to ship to, and I don't want to fall behind in the first few weeks.

New books for me then.

I had mine shipped to the school. I called the library and one of the librarians agreed to receive them for me. You can sign up for Amazon student and get two day shipping.

AMAZON STUDENT

I'd buy used and buy them as early as you can. Then, when the semester is over, wait until like two weeks before the next semester starts before re-listing them on Amazon/Half/wherever to re-sell them. Obviously more important to do this after spring semester than in the fall. I bought a tax textbook at the beginning of the summer for $60, ended up dropping the class, and now am selling the textbook for $100.

If you don't know the person you're buying the books used from (and his/her class rank), I say NEW. The notes and highlights in used books, especially in books used by some random 1L (*shudder*) you don't even know, are likely to be terrible and worse, misleading. Plus, I personally needed the visual stimulation of highlighting my texts myself the first year. For the second year, I basically begged for used books from high-ranked 3Ls, many of which I got for FREE. But that was after I had gotten some basic handle on what is actually important in a case and after my law BS detector was more developed. I just know my legal brain wasn't finely honed enough as a 1L to make used books worth the gamble.

FTR, I'm no dummy. I'm a 3L in the top 5-10% of my class, and I've been there since the first semester of law school.

LoriBelle wrote:If you don't know the person you're buying the books used from (and his/her class rank), I say NEW. The notes and highlights in used books, especially in books used by some random 1L (*shudder*) you don't even know, are likely to be terrible and worse, misleading.

you're not buying books used to get an edge; you're buying them used to save money

Here is what I just did this weekend:

Reading through the highlighting was so annoying for me in UG (it slowed me down by about 50%) that I either purchased casebooks "like new," new, or in one case used at the bookstore because it was totally unmarked in. In each case I tried to lower cost while avoiding as much notes/highlighting as possible.

As for hornbooks and E&Es I just bought them in "good" or "like new" on Amazon for the cheapest price possible. I figure people are less likely to mark those up, so hopefully the "good"s will actually be good.

It seriously makes it almost impossible for me to read/comprehend at a good place if I keep thinking the highlighted area is important when, more than half the time, the person who highlighted it was an idiot who didn't know that this was either unimportant or covered in depth later.

I'm definitely going to be buying used books online that aren't in shit condition. You can save bundles of cash that way.

I bought all my casebooks used and saved a good chunk of change. I tried to minimize the highlighting (because multicolored highlighting damn near makes me seize and it's annoying), but it's a crapshoot buying used online-you can't see it before you order it. That said, I don't really mind if there is highlighting and writing in the margins, because I'm not the highlighting or making notes in the book type anyway.

New prices for casebooks on Amazon were mostly less than used at my campus bookstore. I've saved at least a couple hundred dollars through amazon and half.com-that's money that can now go towards supplements and beer