
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