Recommended Reading
This list has been prepared by the faculty in an effort to identify a few well-written, accessible books that provide a useful window on law and lawyers. It includes many different kinds of books. We suggest that you browse through a few -- in a bookstore or library or online -- and then choose any one or more that appeal to you.
Law and the Legal Profession
- Floyd Abrams, Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment
- Paul Barrett, et al., A Year in the Life of the Supreme Court
- Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller
- Robert M. Cover, Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process
- Vine Deloria, Jr. and Clifford M. Lytle, The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty
- Melvin A. Eisenberg, The Nature of the Common Law
- Richard A. Epstein, Simple Rules for a Complex World
- Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law
- Lawrence M. Friedman, American Law: An Introduction
- Alexander Hamilton, et al., The Federalist Papers
- Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action
- Mona Harrington, Women Lawyers: Rewriting the Rules
- Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality
- Anthony T. Kronman, The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession
- Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court
- Edward H. Levi, Introduction to Legal Reasoning
- Anthony Lewis, Gideon's Trumpet
- Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment
- Karl N. Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study
- Gerald P. López, Rebellious Lawyering: One Chicano's Vision of Progressive Law Practice
- John T. Noonan, Jr., Narrowing the Nation's Power: The Supreme Court Sides With the States
- Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, The Supreme Court, and Free Speech
- Richard Posner, The Problems of Jurisprudence
- William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court
- Gerald N. Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?
- Bernard Schwartz, A History of the Supreme Court
- Bernard Schwartz, Decision: How the Supreme Court Decides Cases
- William Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords, and a World of Endless Conflict
- James F. Simon, The Center Holds: The Power Struggle Inside the Rehnquist Court
- J. Clay Smith, Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers
- Gerald M. Stern, The Buffalo Creek Disaster: How the Survivors of One of the Worst Disasters in Coal-Mining History Brought Suit Against the Coal Company and Won
- Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from The Sedition Act of 1798 to The War on Terrorism
- Irving Stone, Clarence Darrow for the Defense
- Cass R. Sunstein, Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict
- James B. White, Legal Imagination: Studies in the Nature of Legal Thought and Expression
- Robert Woodward & Scott Armstrong, The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court
- The Constitution of the United States
Judicial Biographies
- Albert W. Aschuler, Law Without Values: The Life, Work, and Legacy of Justice Holmes
- Leonard Baker, John Marshall: A Life in Law
- Jack Bass, Unlikely Heroes
- Jack Bass, Taming the Storm: The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson and the South's Fight Over Civil Rights
- Kim Isaac Eisler, A Justice for All: William J. Brennan, Jr., and the Decisions That Transformed America
- Linda Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey
- Gerald Gunther, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge
- Laura Kalman, Abe Fortas
- Andrew L. Kaufman, Cardozo
- Alpheus Thomas Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man's Life
- Richard A. Posner, Cardozo: A Study in Reputation
- Bernard Schwartz, Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court
- Mark V. Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961
- Mark V. Tushnet, Making Constitutional Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961-1991
- G. Edward White, Earl Warren: A Public Life
- G. Edward White, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self
Philosophy of Law
- Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process
- Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia
- Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanation
- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
Novels and Short Stories
- Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter
- Charles Dickens, Bleak House
- George Eliot, Middlemarch
- John Grisham, The Chamber
- John Grisham, The Street Lawyer
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
- Franz Kafka, The Trial
- John Mortimer's Rumpole series, perhaps beginning with Rumpole and the Younger Generation
- Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Murder
- Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent
- Scott Turow, Burden of Proof
Fiction and Non-Fiction About Law School
- Lani Guiner, et al., Become Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional Change
- John J. Osborn, Jr., Paper Chase
- Helene Shapo & Marshall Shapo, Law School Without Fear: Strategies for Success (2d ed. 2002)
- Scott Turow, One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School
Other Helpful Books
- Ruggero J. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers (3d ed. 1997)
- Steven J. Burton, An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning
- Leif Carter, Reason in Law
- Tom Goldstein & Jethro K. Lieberman, The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well
- Kent Greenwalt, Legislation: Statutory Interpretation: 20 Questions
- Abner J. Mikva, An Introduction to Statutory Interpretation and the Legislative Process
- Peter N. Simon, The Anatomy of a Lawsuit
- William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style (4th ed. 2000)
- Richard C. Wydick, Plain English for Lawyers (4th ed. 1994)
