Pre-Law Reading List

If you want to hit the ground running and determine if law school might be right for you, take a look at these recommendations from all across the legal spectrum.

Background on Legal Reasoning and the American Legal System

  • An Introduction to Legal Reasoning(Edward Levi)
  • Law 101 (Jay M. Feinman)
  • Simple Rules for a Complicated World (Richard Epstein)
  • The Federalist Papers
  • The Nature of the Judicial Process (Benjamin Nathan Cardozo)
  • The Bramble Bush: Our Law and Its Study (Karl Llewllyn)

Legal Profession

  • 24 Hours with 24 Lawyers: Profiles of Traditional and Non-Traditional Careers (Jasper Kim)
  • Law vs. Life (Walt Bachman)
  • Should You Really Be a Lawyer (Deobrah Schneider)
  • The Official Guide to Legal Specialties: An Insider’s Guide to Every Major Practice Area (Lisa Abrams)
  • To Be a Trial Lawyer (F. Lee Bailey)
  • Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (Richard Susskin)

Legal Ethics

  • The Lawyer Myth: A Defense of the American Legal Profession (Rennard Strickland and Frank T. Read)
  • The Lure of the Law: Why People Become Lawyers, and What the Profession Does to Them (Richard Moll)

Law School Admissions

  • 55 Successful Harvard Law School Application Essays: What Worked for Them Can Help You Get Into the Law School of Your Choice (Staff of the Harvard Crimson)
  • The Best Law Schools’ Admissions Secrets: The Essential Guide from Harvard’s Former Admissions Dean (Joyce Curll)
  • The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions: Straight Advice on Essays, Resumes, Interviews, and More (Anna Ivey)

Law School

  • Getting To Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams (Richard Michael Fischl and Jeremy Paul)
  • Law School Confidential (Robert H. Miller)
  • Letters From Law School: The Life of a Second-Year Law Student (Lawrence Dieker)
  • One L (Scott Turow)
  • The Law School Labyrinth: A Guide to Making the Most of Your Legal Education(Steven Sedberry)

Philosophy of Law

  • An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (Roscoe Pound)
  • Law’s Empire (Ronald Dworkin)
  • Punishment and Responsibility (H.L.A. Hart)
  • The Path of Law (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

Law and Economics

  • An Introduction to Law & Economics (Mitchell Polinsky)
  • The Court and the Economic System, 98 Harvard Law Review 4 (1984) (Judge Frank Easterbrook)

Constitutional Law

  • A Matter of Interpretation (Antonin Scalia)
  • My Beloved World (Sonia Sotomayor)
  • The Tempting of America (Robert Bork)

Novels and Biographies

  • A Civil Action (Jonathan Harr)
  • Gideon’s Trumpet (Anthony Lewis)
  • The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Jeffrey Toobin)

This content was adapted from Baylor University’s PreLaw Page