Book recommendations before law school Forum

[Paulaaxox]

I was wondering if anyone has any book recommendations/study guides that can be helpful for someone who is just about to start their 1L.
I'm not looking for anything intensive, but something along the lines of an intro books, that have general information about each topic.

The topic's I'm specifically interested in are: Torts, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Contracts.

Thanks!

[murdock83]

Personally, I say just take it easy and don't bother. You learn everything you will need to know during the semester. Do yourself a favor, have fun this summer and give your brain a rest. By December, you'll be tired of reading.If you are determined and bored, you may want a grammar refresh for your LRW course. I had several years between college and LS and wish I had done a bit of refresher beforehand.

[Calbears123]

None. Read E&E as you go through the sections in class. Read Getting too Maybe during Thankgiving break.

[nick417]

None.

Everything you need to know for law school will be taught by your professors. The commercial outlines and other recommendation books are a waste of time. The best thing to do is relax.

[mornincounselor]

If I were you I'd listen to the oral arguments for some recent important cases from the subjects you are interested in. Oyez has the argument from every case since the 1960s in audio form. If you really must read I'd go for the biographies of various justices or something like Akhil Amar's Written/Unwritten Constitution (you can take the corresponding courses on Cousera from Yale if you are so inclined)

But, it's really a time to relax and hit the gym, travel, do some non-legal reading, etc.

[dodint]

Since you asked for a book recommendation and not whether or not you should be reading anything, I recommend this:

Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About American Law, 4th Edition by Jay Feinman
https://www.amazon.com/Law-101-Everythi ... 199341699/

It's written in a light conversational format but is broken down into chapters in the way you'd like. The chapter on Contracts was surprisingly interesting. It doesn't go into law school depth, but it's not meant to. It's basically a 300ish page outline of what you might see in law school.

Good luck.

[jbagelboy]

aristotle, nicomachean ethics (like, 55% of the common law)

one article by H.L.A. Hart and Dworkin each (concept of law versus taking rights seriously)

a chapter from Rawls and a chapter from Posner (political philosophy versus economic analysis of law and the critique of utilitarianism)

Franzen, the Corrections (for pleasure)

if you're ambitious, Arendt, origins of totalitarianism (for a different ontological perspective so that you don't become a super annoying law student who has read Hart, Dworkin, Rawls, and Posner and thinks he understands social order)

for Con Law--I read Bessler's Birth of American Law (on Beccaria) this summer, and its a pretty good way to conceptualize where the whole founding fathers thing is coming from for a law student

[jbagelboy]

my K's prof told us to read Gilmore's Death of Contract.. if you really care about the relationship between tort and contract and property and that common law stuff is interesting to you historically than go for it

[sublime]

Skim GTM around the beggining then reread it closer to exams.