I'm starting law school this August, and since I have a few months before I have to start studying, and some free time on my hands, I'm trying to compile a reading list of essential books on legal theory and practice (in particular American law) so I have a good grounding for when I start.
So far, I've got:
>Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws
>Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England
>Kent, Commentaries on American Law
>The Federalist
>Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Common Law
What other works do you guys think are important for understanding the Anglo-American legal tradition in general, and doing well at an American law school in particular? Other thoughts on the study and practice of law, from a /lit/ perspective?
Bump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6cyDsuNx_U
How to be a parasite
- any lawyer
>>7700499
In theory, I think you're right-- I work in the legal system now, and it seems incredibly bloated and inefficient, to the point of being parasitic. Businesses spend millions of dollars on huge teams of corporate lawyers to go over every aspect of their deals with a fine-tooth comb, and in practice, the expenses involved act as a barrier to entry forcing anyone who can't afford to hire a huge and prestigious law firm out of the market. My exposure has been on the corporate side, but in litigation the same thing is almost definitely true.
With that being said, I don't think the practice is going to go away anytime soon, and for those capable of getting to the top of it, there's a lot of money to be made. But it's also, the way I see it, the most intellectually rigorous and academically serious profession to also have such tremendous financial incentives attached to it. One can study law in the hopes of making lots of money, but also because it is intellectually stimulating and a challenging mental exercise.
Lawyer here, legal theory is fun and all, but it's useless. I can't specify a book for you to be looking for, but you should read about the hands-on practice of law rather than some obtuse theories which aren't useful in the informational space in which lawyers operate. You can reduce the theory down pretty far and digest it easily and in practice it's all behind the scenes stuff. Painters don't need to learn how to make canvas, even if it might be interesting. The big problems in law these days - the moral, ethical and philosophical problems - aren't really relevant to the old stuff. How do you ensure that money and power don't subvert the justice system? How do you arrive at truth when the human mind itself is so falliable and subject to bias and memory error? What do you do when the laws as written leave people powerless to enforce them effectively through the court system? How do you fund the courts without creating perverse incentives to exploit its own "consumers" by leeching them with fees and penalties and jailing them if they don't pay up (debtor's prison issues)? I don't think you're going to find answers to these questions in old English common law because those are old questions, not active questions. You brush past the old stuff in the first few weeks of law school anyways, you'll get what you need to know there.
I did read The Nine by Toobin (it's about the supreme court) not sure how useful it'll be but it was pretty good though, so there's a rec at least.
Also, as a public service: don't go into law school unless you have pre-existing connections to a firm where you'll get hired for sure (or are an excellent networker/schmoozer and plan to focus on this) because it's still a waste of money. The profession is changing significantly right now.
>>7700499
Lawyers aren't parasites, but some parasites are lawyers - and even in that case usually it's the CLIENT that's the parasite.
Actually, the majority of lawyers are probably more ethical than the average person because we're steeped in ethics and actually think about this stuff (and because the average person is an asshole). Most of my law school classmates were in law school because they wanted to do good and help people, not just make $$$ (although they all assumed they could do both, which is hard).
>>7700400
Jesus Christ anon, do you want to hate the subject before you even get to the first case on Taxation Law?
Montesquieu is completely irrelevant except for two paragraphs which are paraphrased in The Federalist Papers.
Blackstone and Kent are not 'a good grounding for when you start'. That's core reading, and you won't get anything useful from it, except think you know more than your fellow students in the first month of school.
Oliver Wendell Holmes could be a good starting point. Check out Path of the Law as well.
Look up some of the more popular writings by Richard Posner, it's very readable.
If you want an idea of legal philosophy check out The Concept of Law by HLA Hart, and the Hart / Fuller debate, published in the Harvard Law Review.
Law is a cool field, and from a literary perspective there are plenty of things to enjoy, Law and Literature is an emerging field of study, with some cool stuff going on.
>>7700575
Thanks for the advice! I've been reading a few books about the supreme court, including Rhenquist's book and a few others, and I'll definitely check out The Nine. Do you have any other suggestions as far as familiarizing myself with current practice? I work at a large law firm now, though not as an attorney, so I feel I have a decent understanding of the way it tends to operate, but I'd love to read anything that could broaden my perspective on it.
I do realize, as a result of that experience, that stuff like Blackstone and Kent has basically no bearing on the actual practice of law, and I'm sure when I actually start working at a firm it'll all be out the window, but I'm primarily concerned with my next few years as a student, and getting the background to do as well as possible in classes.
I appreciate your warning about not going to law school, and I know how terrible the market is right now-- I'm going to a very good law school that large firms recruit from, and I do have some pre-existing firm connections, so I'm hoping I'll be in a better position than most, but I also know how much of it depends on your grades, and I want to set myself up to excel, to the extent that it's possible to prepare in advance. Any tips or advice on that side of things based on your time in law school?
>>7700619
google this phrase in quotes:
LSAC wouldn't waste the time and money on it.
you should get a single google result leading to an archived warosu thread from /lit/
right click the arrow beside the url and click view cached version
read whole thread
>>7700805
Thanks, read through the whole thread there. The take away seems to be that there isn't much reading you can do to better prepare yourself for law school, it just comes down to doing well in classes when the time comes.
I will probably read through my useless legal theory books in the next few months anyway, since I need something to read, right? Maybe supplement with Getting to Maybe-style books about law school. Can't hurt to orient yourself more in that direction prior to starting class.
>>7700400
elements of the philosophy of right hegel.
also contribution the the critique of hegels philosophy of right marx.
Schmitt
Rest in Peace papa Scalia. You will be missed. </3
Check out Léon Duguit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Duguit
https://archive.org/details/cu31924032466348
tl;dr the only undisputed norms of objective law are those positive and negative obligations which are imposed on people who belong to the same social group. Social solidarity occurs when people have common needs which can be satisfied jointly,and when people have different needs and different abilities which can be satisfied through the exchange of mutual services. Proceeding from these propositions he tries to replace laws with obligations: "There is no law other than the law to fulfil one's duty".
>>7700575
I always wondered why law school has such a bad reputation in the United States. In the UK it seems a lot easier (in the long term) to establish yourself as a solicitor and indeed a barrister if you're fortunate and extremely intelligent and motivated for law and solely law. Hey ho!
OP, if you enjoy reading these papers, read them. It's never a bad thing to be grounded in the history of the ancient constitution of which your law descends from.
>>7701426
>why law school has such a bad reputation in the United States.
It's the predatory, capitalistic exploitation of students, who get money from the government and cannot discharge the loans, ever. That, and the profession is undergoing a structural change which has reduced the demand for lawyers (while law schools churn out supply)
Basically, law schools figured out they could charge whatever they wanted for a legal education because the government was footing the bill up front. In 2016 dollars, a law school education would have cost like 3k a year in 1980; it's often around 50k now, with no real additional benefit to the student in terms of employability. The law schools obfuscate and lie about their employment data to hide this, and thus take advantage of youthful hopes to make obscene profits from non-dischargeable debt in order to prepare students (poorly) for jobs that don't exist anymore.
In short, there's a lot of good reasons they've gotten a bad reputation. Higher education in general is going to go through the same thing very soon - law school is the tip of the iceberg. Colleges should not be run like corporations.
Lawyer here.
Read fiction and poetry. You will have more than enough legal crap, especially your first year.
If you must read something legal, try BLEAK HOUSE
>>7700400
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit
Freud, The Ego and the Id
Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 17
>>7700575
That's literally the reason why modern legal systems are going to implode.
>>7701856
I always thought that American Universities being a scam was just a meme. Who the hell's paying 50k a year for law?
