Best legal rules & procedures law books according to redditors

The Innocent Man. It was largely responsible for the answer that I give when people ask me why I am an ADA- Someone is going to do this job. I trust myself to question, to work, not to slide into laziness or complacency. I don't trust others to do a job this important. I do it because it matters.

But as for why the law in general? When I was in high school I read The Tempting of America. I could not have disagreed with it more strongly. I STILL inherently disagree with basically the entirety of Robert Bork's jurisprudence. However, it was an eye opener- this is what "the law" is about. It showed me that the law can have both big ideas and petty squabbles, and that they can both be equally interesting.

I think part of the problem is really that people are looking at only granular parts of problems today and don't have enough historical context. Its useless to follow every story about everyone and every little thing. There are lots of ups and downs in politics and there's no reason to be so reactionary to every single new and probably manufactured "scandal".... that's what's exhausting. I like to keep updated on a few big issues, I follow the careers of a few people I find inspiring (and follow a few that do things that worry me), and spend the rest of the time reading up on topics in book form... they have the advantage of being written over time, and with more vigorous standards for accuracy. The news, while still important where immediate info is necessary, is essentially click bait now. You don't need to get caught in the rip tides that pull you everywhere constantly, just understand the general trajectory of the important things.

edit: to those curious about some book recommendations: I'm by no means an expert in anything really, and the books you read should really be about the topics you personally are interested in, so don't take my word as gospel (or any author's). I like American history, ancient history, international relations, and though I think they're more boring I force myself to read about the health care system and the American education system because I feel they're important. I'm also looking to read some books on the military industrial complex and cyber security/ big data because I don't really know anything about them other than the stuff I see in passing on the news or here on Reddit. So if anyone knows a good overview of those issues, feel free to let me know.

• For a good start on human history and the beginnings of modern economics/ intl relations (basically why the West has historically dominated), try Guns, Germs, and Steel I believe there's also a documentary if the book is too dense for your taste (it is pretty dense).
  
  
• Perhaps if you're interested in why people get so damn heated talking politics, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation
  
  
• If you wonder why people vote against their own social and economic interest: What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Full disclosure: I liked this book, but I lean left. I'm not sure if it matters, the point of the book is just to track how the Republican party went from being the party of elites, to the party of blue collar workers.
  
  
• If the Supreme Court interests you at all, I liked Jeffrey Toobin's, The Nine
  
  
• The achievement gap? Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria
  
  
• Health care? There's a lot, but this one is an easy read and it compares the systems of Britain, Japan, Germany, and I believe Cuba (which is very good for their GDP!) and the US's. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid
  
  This is just some stuff I've listed off the top of my head. Another thing that I find helpful to better understanding intl relations are books about the major genocides of the past few decades, which are hard to get through (because of the brutal content) but... What is the What (Sudan), First they killed my father (Cambodian genocide), Girl at War (more of a autobiography, but still chilling) there's a couple of others I've read that I can't remember now.
  
  Anyway, just go to Good Reads and look at Contemporary Politics. Perhaps Great Courses has a political philosophy course too that you can draw from if you wanna go even farther back into the origins of society's structure and political thought.
  
  Also podcasts! I've just discovered these but there's a lot of audio content (FREE!) that you can listen to on your commute and whatnot. I like Abe Lincoln's Top Hat right now.
  
  Edit edit: wow thanks for the gold!!

So it's cool when T_D bans people because they should be allowed to set the rules for their subreddit but it's "censorship" when LGTB sets the rules for their subreddit.

Gotcha.

EDIT: Recommend reading for the confused individuals below, the excellent book Free Speech for Me--But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other by Nat Hentoff.

They absolutely should have rejected it. It is very clear that the majority (Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas) were acting more on behalf of their Republican partisanship than coherent judicial philosophy.

Now, Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist were always going to be for Bush. The real question were the four moderates, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, and Breyer. All of these moderates, except Breyer, were Republican, and had been appointed by a Republican President. By this time, Kennedy and O'Connor tended to be more conservative than not, Souter and Breyer more liberal than not. O'Connor was the swing vote on nearly all 5-4 cases, but she was in the end a conservative who tried to tailor the court's opinions to be narrow rulings in line with public opinion.

One of the lawyers who worked in Anthony Kennedy's was so sure that certiorari would be denied he didn't even bring a legal pad when Kennedy summoned him to talk about the case.

>The legal basis for Bush’s position was incidental and rather weak. The principal argument concerned the obscure provision of Article II in the Constitution that provides that each state shall choose electors “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct.” The Republicans said that it was now the Florida [Supreme Court]—and not the legislature—that was “directing” how Florida chose the winner of the state’s electoral votes. The sole authority for this claim was a nearly incomprehensible opinion of the Court from 1892. (The Florida court had disposed of this article II argument by saying that it was simply doing what courts always do—interpreting Florida election law, not making it. Almost as a throwaway, the Bush team added another claim—that the recounts violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Their casual attention to this argument—just three pages in a forty-two page brief—was understandable. The Supreme Court, in granting cert in the Palm Beach case, had thought the equal protection argument was so weak that it refused even to hear argument on the issue.

Originally, Rehnquist was going to rule in favor of Bush on the Article II grounds, but Kennedy preferred the Equal Protection Clause. Since Rehnquist needed Kennedy for a majority, he got his way.

>The problem with Kennedy’s analysis, as innumerable commentators subsequently pointed out, was that no court, much less the Supreme Court, had ever before imposed any kind of constitutional rule of uniformity in the counting of ballots. Most states, including Florida, used different voting technologies in a single election. Kennedy was right that the recount might have produced inconsistencies and anomalies. But he was wrong on the larger, far more important point. A recount would have been more accurate than the certified total. The court’s opinion preserved and endorsed a less fair, and less accurate, count of the votes.

O'Connor thought that Kennedy's logic was flawed, but she didn't want a broad ruling that mandated new, uniform election laws.
>Kennedy responded by adding what become the most notorious sentence in the opinion—indeed, a single sentence that summed up so much of what was wrong with what the Court did. “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances,” Kennedy wrote, “for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”
>In other words, the opinion did not reflect any general legal principles; rather the Court was acting only to assist a single individual—George W. Bush.

So the conservative majority essentially said that continuing the recount amounted to irreparable harm to Bush behalf of the Equal Protection clause, since the recount practices were not standardized, and issued a stay, stopping the recount. This need not have happened:
>Breyer had a simple solution: remand the case back to the Florida Supreme Court, order those justices to set a clear standard for the whole state, and the recount the votes. Breyer loved compromise—and he thought this was a good one.

Stevens was very much on the ball with his dissent that pointed out that recounting votes in no way amounted to irreparable harm. Souter was heartbroken by the case, and considered resigning over the crudely partisan way in which the Court took up and decided the case. O'Connor permanently stained her reputation of trying to tailor to public opinion (Gore had won more votes from Americans than any other candidate up to this point, excepting Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide). But O'Connor's Republican partisanship overrode that in Bush v. Gore (many forget that she was the Republican Senate Majority Leader in Arizona back in the day). O'Connor (and even Kennedy) ended up moving to the left after Bush v. Gore (they were very much in disagreement with how the Bush Administration legally conducted the War on Terror).

Today, the Justices on the case try very much not to talk much about the decision (even Scalia, the most gleefully partisan Republican on the Court), and O'Connor recently publicly stated that
>“Maybe the Court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’ ”

The quotes come from Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.

I just finished The Nine Old Men that details FDR's huge fights with the Supreme Court, including him ignoring injunctions for the WPA and basically saying "Now there's a million dudes who work because of this program you're about to rule on. If you kill it, I'll give them your address and let them know exactly who's responsible"

Now that is good. For $11 I’ll give it a go.

https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Inside-Secret-World-Supreme/dp/1400096790

Surprisingly more expensive on kindle, so paperback it is. Looks like a decent book. Thanks man!

OH MY GOD I have been waiting for this post!!!!

Best legal writing book I have ever seen is: Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges -- By Antonin (SCOTUS Justice) Scalia and Brian Garner.

It is AMAZING.

Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Your-Case-Persuading-Judges/dp/0314184716/ref=asc_df_0314184716/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312142542416&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8044996114739830784&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9021716&hvtargid=pla-489109186761&psc=1

A book called "A History of the World in Six Glasses" explores the roles that beer, wine, distilled spirits, tea, coffee, and water played throughout history.

In the chapter on coffee, the author describes a period when Muslims were debating whether or not coffee should be outlawed due to the mind-altering effect of caffeine (as with alcohol). They literally had a trial in which they placed a vessel of coffee on the "stand" to be judged. Eventually, it was decided that coffee was innocent as its effect on the body could be comparable to that of spicy food.

Side note: From an interview on NPR with another author, apparently it has been common throughout history for animals and inanimate objects to be tried for crimes. For instance, a man was being tried for bestiality with a pig. They judged whether or not the pig should be punished for immorality but ultimately decided that it was innocent and let it go.

The author's book is "The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O.J. Simpson". I haven't read it, but it sounded interesting from the interview.

Are you in law school? You don't have any flair.

Err... I would not send people off reading judicial opinions. Brian Gardner and Scalia have a pretty good book on legal writing. But really, I'd just tell Robotrick to IRAC or CREAC if his writing is weak.

IRAC = Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion and is used for objective writing.

CREAC = Contention, Rule, Example (if you have any. For legal writing these are cases - not sure this would translate too well for non-legal writing), Analysis, Conclusion and is used for persuasive writing.

It's a simple way to break down what you want to talk about. That said, it's not very pretty. It's mainly used so someone who doesn't want to sift through endless BS can quickly figure out WTF you're trying to say because they have a roadmap in their head for what you're doing.

Don't worry about it too much. You can keep IRAC in the back of your head until you're in your LRW class - then do whatever your prof tells you to do.

• The Nine
  
• Gideon's Trumpet
  
• Make No Law
  
• Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
  
  >What about readings like The Federalist Papers
  
  Don't be that guy. Seriously.

Seconding those, and I'd also suggest William Rehnquist's history of the court. It's less of what you're looking for than the books VIJoe suggested, but it provides some interesting contexts and gives a clearer idea of the nitty-gritty of how the court works than most anything else. For obvious reasons, it doesn't cover much in the way of specific cases during his tenure on the court, and has a few problems with bias but it's an interesting read nonetheless. (If you want a good supplement for much of the Rehnquist era, Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine is an entertaining read that gives good context. Some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it's worth a glance.)

I haven't read it yet and can't speak to how well it fits the OP's criteria, but I hear very good things about John Paul Stevens's recently-published memoir.

If you want to go really in-depth and particularly technical with this sort of thing, I'd recommend picking up a few of the Examples & Explanations books that law students use as study aids. They're a hell of a lot more dry than any of these recommendations, and they'll include a wider range of cases than you're looking for, but you might find them interesting.

However, note that important legal cases that lead to serious revisions of legal principles are often more boring than painting grass and watching it dry as it grows.

If you're in litigation, I've seen this mentioned frequently.

I recommend this to everyone, and it helped me get the A+ in Civ Pro, and an A in Civ Pro II: Acing Civil Procedure.

It gives you easy to remember summaries of all the topics in a way that's digestible for an Exam. My issue with Erie was that the cases made it seem far more complex than it actually is. This gave me a good overview, as well as helpful examples to make sure I understood all the edge cases that might come up on an exam.

It also helps give you the layout for the actual standard for Personal Jurisdiction. I often found it a bit confusing to understand what applied now for Personal JX, and this helped clarify that as well. Very helpful, and very cheap compared to other supplements.

Dude, all of this is wrong. I am actually almost certain you're fucking with me. Statutory law is law written into statute. Common Law is law found in precedent from prior decisions; look up stare decisis and precedent.

Equity and admiralty are not jurisdictions, they're types of law. Also, there are more than those. The constitution grants federal courts jurisdiction for certain types of cases, amdiralty being one of them.

Your read up and understanding of Erie is off as well. Erie essentially says that diversity cases(a type of jurisdiction under the constitution) does not allow federal courts to make common law. Rather, they have to use one of the states from the diversity plaintiffs.

Read this and get back to me.

Fellow far-lefty. Had a Marxist phase in high school, campaigned full-time for Kerry, voted Obama. Carried a flag at the Gay Games, protested in the street against the Iraq War, long-term boyfriend is from South America.

I'm not there yet as a Trump supporter, as I can't stomach his tax policy that would exacerbate inequality and his stance on climate change that I consider criminally insane.

But I love this sub because I can't stand the two-faced, whiny, bitter, infantile, divisive strand of leftism which I see rampant among friends and former friends. The sheer idiocy of gay people scared of Trump, but not scared of a woman that embraced them 10 years after he did; of leftists claiming to look out for the little guy but supporting open borders from Barrow to Tierra del Fuego - because you know what will help the little guy, opening the labor market to several hundred million people with a lower payscale!

The Democratic Party has lost me with two mistakes - embracing Wall Street while abandoning attempts to reduce wealth inequality, and delving into the Byzantine world of identity politics. Who gives a fuck if one baker from rural Oklahoma won't bake a gay marriage cake? This is not a human rights abuse. GTFO.

edit: This has been brewing for a long time, however. More than 20 years ago someone put my hands on Free Speech for me - but not for thee and I've been bothered by the sanctimonious, censorious left for a long time. But that toxic left seems to have become the left itself.

For appellate writing:

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Your-Case-Persuading-Judges/dp/0314184716/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

Well, I would highly recommend renting some textbooks on American politics, American political history, and American political theory. Perhaps start here and work your way up: http://www.amazon.com/Logic-American-Politics-Samuel-Kernell/dp/1568028911

If you find textbooks too dull, then here is a good list of books to get you started:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Federalist-Anti-Federalist-Papers/dp/1495446697/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453181599&sr=1-1&keywords=federalist+and+anti-federalist+papers

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-America-Penguin-Classics-Tocqueville/dp/0140447601

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ideological-Origins-American-Revolution/dp/0674443020

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Burghardt/dp/0684856573

http://www.amazon.com/The-Nine-Inside-Secret-Supreme/dp/1400096790

http://www.amazon.com/Congress-Electoral-Connection-Second-Edition/dp/0300105878

http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Know-About-Politics/dp/1611452996

http://www.amazon.com/The-Race-between-Education-Technology/dp/0674035305

http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/1491534656

*If you actually take the time to read these, you will be better informed than 99 percent of the voting public. <-- And after you read these, that sentence will terrify you because you will realize each of these books is just an introduction, and the world is being run by technocrats. JK, but not really.

Edit: But really.

It was publicly released nearly 4 months ago. You can get your very own copy here:
The Mueller Report: Part I and II

Well, Epstein and Knight, who literally wrote the book on how the Supreme Court makes decisions, disagree with him.

I used to live by the [Insert Law Subject Here] in a Nutshell series, e.g. Contracts in a Nutshell

They cover dozens of topics, and are always in small paperback form, which is a nice change of pace when one gets sick of carrying 5kg hardbacks to class.

I always thought the series did a nice job of introducing topics in a generalized way and then slowly narrowing the discussion until the details had a solid context.

not only that, the chain of evidence must be established to ensure that the samples were not tampered with. regarding scientific evidence, the scientist being questioned must have their credentials verified and the judge has to formally FIND the witness admitted as an expert witness, depending on the jurisdiction the Frye Test or Daubert would control. Evidentiary Foundations is a GREAT resource for how to lay proper foundation for testimony.

Manhunt by Peter Bergen is about the ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden by the United States government, written by the only Western journalist to ever interview OBL. It's hard to find someone involved in the hunt whom he didn't interview, and the result is fantastically fair and even-handed.

If you're looking at something a bit more big-picture, The Art of Intelligence by Henry Crumpton is a solid overview of modern intelligence operations as framed by his career. It's not for cynics, but it's a good read nonetheless.

I also went on a Supreme Court-related kick this summer after the Obamacare decision. The definitive look at how the Supreme Court functions comes courtesy of Bob Woodward's The Brethren. He wrote it 25ish years ago with Supreme Court insiders (including a former Justice) as sources. The subject matter is a little historical (he covers the Burger court from 1969 to 1975) and at times a little technical (I'm a SCOTUS dork and even I had to look a few things up) but if you're interested in how the Court actually works, it's essential reading. I highly recommend the chapter on the 1973 term - Woodward devotes at least 50+ pages to their ruling in United States v. Nixon (the Watergate case) with a blow-by-blow account of Watergate from the Supreme Court's perspective. If you're a constitutional dork like me, it's both heartening and heart-pounding.

For a more recent perspective on the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine is worth checking out. He writes about the Rehnquist Court from about 1992 to 2006, and while it's neither as well-written nor as neutral as Woodward's book, it's still pretty insightful about the current Court's jurisprudential disposition.

I'll probably get down voted for this but... try reading "The Tempting of America" by Robert Bork. Yeah, the controversial conservative judge. An upperclassman suggested I read this during my Con Law class, and it was a much more interesting way to understand a lot of the conservative vs. liberal wrangling over cases like Roe v Wade. I think it will be a good read even if you lean to the left.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tempting-America-Robert-Bork/dp/0684843374

P.S. good choice of careers. Personally I'm pushing my kids to fields like C.S. versus the law.

This is great for personal review. I’ve got a lot of family that would see Washington post and immediately claim it to be disingenuousness. I also purchased a this version. It is just the report as released by the department of justice with no forwards or summaries so I can loan it out without having to justify the publisher and any external conclusions. All I’ve got to say is read it for yourself and make your own conclusions.

I'm sorry this issue of including Sun Tzu's name in the title bothers you so much.

However, I don't think it would have been proper of me to have adapted the meaning of someone else's work and use my name as the sole contributor. Don't you agree?

Maybe you feel as impassioned about Mark McNeilly using Sun Tzu's name for his own adaptation. Or Colin Thorne. Or Gerald Michalsen. Or Bevin Alexander. Or Dean Lundell. Or Becky Sheetz-Runkle. Or Michael Cheung. Or the literally hundreds of other adaptations of Sun Tzu's work. The style of non-attribution you are suggesting is actually a form of plagiarism.

The point is that I did this for fun, for free, and I explicitly admit that it's merely an amateurish adaptation.

__

edit: removed sarcasm

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amazon.co.uk

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Absolutely. Here are a few of my faves and I'm tagging /u/laMuerte5 as he/she was interested in the podcast part.

Books (none of these are affiliate links and i'm going to try and get the formatting right):
The Nine This covers Reagan era through GW era Justices.
The Brethren covers Nixon and Ford Justices
The Supreme Court I haven't read this one but it is on my list. Although it is a textbook, I have heard that it is an easy read.
The Everything American Government Book I actually bought this for a secret santa exchange and after flipping through it, I ended up buying a Kindle copy for myself. This is great for a general overview and is way better than the For Dummies books on politics.

Podcasts:
First Mondays covers the Supreme Court well. There is another podcast called Supreme Podcast but they haven't updated since March.
John Dickerson has a really cool podcast on political campaigns called Slates Whistlestop
My History Can Beat Up Your Politics combines current events to history. It's really worth checking out.
Introduction to American Politics. I haven't checked this one out but it seems like a good one for an overview.

Pick up a copy of Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. Some guy named Scalia wrote it.

To go in a direction other than the "don't go to lawl school!!!!" and super-serious commenters, if you want something accessible to give you some exposure to legal issues, I would absolutely recommend The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin. It's an easy read and a good mix of law and institutional politics.

Thanks! (he said hoping that you weren't being sarcastic)

Yeah if you're interested in critical responses to the legal formalist model (which is the model that says that law should be this rationally consistent system of principles that can be merely applied by judges--pretty much the basic thing you learn in civics class) I can suggest reading Sociological Jurisprudence and the Legal Realist critiques as a starting point because they are pretty well known (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Roscoe Pound for the former, Karl Llewellyn and Jerome Frank for the latter).

Then maybe you want to look at some of the Critical Legal Studies movement, which basically says that the law is a social tool used to systematically disadvantage certain groups in society--women, people of color, homosexuals, etc--while maintaining the illusion of moral superiority by hiding behind the idea that "the law" is this perfect, reasonable system divorced from political and social concerns. Though while I see their arguments' value I find CLS either incredibly dull and repetitive or upsettingly polemic and inflammatory.

I find the most compelling work to be the relatively new field of Judicial Politics though, since it kind of brings social science tools (like behavioral models) to bear on the judiciary. The seminal model here is definitely Segel and Spaeth although there has been some movement since then obviously. Basically this says that judges decide how to vote based on their policy preferences, just like Congressman decide how to vote based on their policy preferences, and then just come up with a legal reason (not necessarily consciously so, but you can tell a lot more about how a Supreme Court Justice will behave in the future by looking at their policy preferences than by looking at their legal opinions). Not that there aren't plenty of problems in this field (like I said, the Formalist Model was so dominant for so long that people really haven't been studying the judiciary in a social scientific way for very long) but I think that everyone who is at all interested in either Law or Public Policy needs to read at least some of their work.

Sorry for the massive reading list, but I figured you rarely get the opportunity to actually change someone's mind on the internet!

We need to be careful whenever we engage in "rights" talk, though (see [Mary Ann Glendon's book on the subject] (http://www.amazon.com/Rights-Talk-Impoverishment-Political-Discourse/dp/0029118239/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1372372374&sr=8-3&keywords=Mary+Ann+Glendon)). We are still feeling our way down a dark corridor on what "expectation of privacy" means in cyberspace, for instance. And it simply won't do to assert an unlimited expectation of privacy...

The Five Types of Legal Argument is a good primer on what types of arguments are used in the courts that generate case law. Chemerinsky's Constitutional Law is an excellent resource for constitutional law, which is some of the more interesting stuff. The Nine is an easy read and a good introduction to the personalities and major decisions of the Rehnquist court and early Roberts court. Dressler's Understanding Criminal Law is another good one; it explains the general architecture of criminal law and its development. Those might be available at libraries near you. If there's a law library in your area, you can always grab a legal encyclopedia (like American Jurisprudence 2d. or Corpus Juris Secondum) and a Black's Law Dictionary and flip around until you find something interesting. And as others have mentioned, BarBri is a good resource.

Also consider Scalia's Making Your Case, which also includes sections on oral argument.

I used this back in the day for exam prep.

http://www.amazon.com/Acing-Civil-Procedure-Benjamin-Spencer/dp/0314166300

There is a fantastic book by Mary Ann Glendon called Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse that addresses this issue quite eloquently. If you haven't read it, please do. It is a very important book.

Here it is on Amazon

I should always be working on my dissertation, I feel, but that's not always possible. Subtle difference.

As for reading? The go-to books are Segal and Spaeth, Epstein and Knight, and for a bonus, Maltzman, Spriggs, and Wahlbeck. Also, take a gander at Esptein's CV or any of the authors listed. They sometimes have accessible (re: free) articles. Epstein's CV also includes access to the Judicial Common Space scores, which are ideology scores for the Supreme Court.

As for what I want to be researching? Legitimacy, without a doubt. The globalization of law. Law as a recolonizing tool. Comparative constitutional structures. Symbols of law in pop culture. There are a myriad of things that interest me with several common themes.

It's worthwhile to read The Trial, especially the part about the satanic panic of the 80's. Teachers were persecuted because 4 and 5 year olds said they'd been molested in a tunnel under the school, among other absurdities. https://www.amazon.com/Trial-History-Socrates-Simpson/dp/0375505504

A book.

Books specifically about the supreme Court or books written by supreme court justices? I would recommend http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0314184716?pc_redir=1404103002&robot_redir=1

Its a great desktop reference

Evidentiary Foundations by Imwinkelried. Great book. Schooled some DAs with it.

http://www.amazon.com/Evidentiary-Foundations-Edward-J-Imwinkelried/dp/0820554170

I searched the name of the book you recommended but couldn't find it. Do you know the authors name?

Wait are those 3 different books?

Edit: Yea I am dumb they are different books. Here they are on amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Struggle/dp/1400030617

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Lawyer-Mentoring-Paperback/dp/0465016332

https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Action-Jonathan-Harr/dp/0679772677

https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Inside-Secret-World-Supreme/dp/1400096790

>Arguments are expected to be supported with reason and data, and not only authority.

Agreed friend!

This:
>"Well, the Bible says...".

Is an absolutely terrible reason to believe in anything.

What's troubling is when my friends claim rights impede social progress and are ridiculed simply because they quote a Christian author.

If you want to veer off into the workings of the Supreme Court (a crazy bunch of individuals), there are some great nonfiction books. Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine looks at the dynamics of the Court from the Reagan administration on. Jeff Shesol's Supreme Power is about FDR's plan to pack the Court when they kept ruling his New Deal laws as unconstitutional. FDR is kind of a badass.

That sounds like something that would be in the "... for dummies" series if it weren't a legal topic. I think the Nutshell series is the legal equivalent, but it doesn't quite sound like what you want. Between Black's dictionary and this book though, she might be able to figure out what she needs:

http://www.amazon.com/Contracts-Nutshell-In-West-Publishing/dp/0314169245


And if you aren't familiar with the "... for dummies" series, it's not an insult. They have a series of books that attempt to break concepts/topics down into easy to understand terms. Some are really good books on a topic.

EDIT: As a preamble to my response, sorry for above, it was ruder than I intended. Too often people blather on with inane/extreme argument, and I get impatient. It wasn't fair of me to respond in such a way.

Honestly, as someone with a PoliSci background, it's debatable (not being a smartass, btw).

Firstly, not just the first 10 are. Im pretty sure everyone has the natural right to NOT be a slave, but that wasn't promised until the 13th.

Depending on perspective, it can be said that only 1, 13, 15, and 19 are. The overall argument being that natural rights refer to those bestowed by God/the universe/and everything. Your personal right to speak, right to belief, right to self-determination, etc. These are your natural rights.

Snarky example: did God make that AK for you, personally? Oh, no? Then it ain't a natural right.

Serious example: goverment is charging you with something and you need representation/want to face your accuser/etc? Government has a regiment of soldiers stashed in your house? (FYI, I believe these are terrible things)

These are legal rights/issues, NOT those bestowed by the universe et all.

Ultimately, no, our amendments are not our natural rights -- they are an early attempt at formally codifying what were believed to be the primary rights of an individual. But, these were heavily determined by the perspectives of those doing the writing--thoughtful, philosophical, industrious, rebellious, white male, land/business owners. Non-whites were all but excluded excluded from our so-called natural rights because they were widely seen as lesser beings in enlightenment thought. The amendments reflect well-meaning, but outdated sentiments. In my opinion, the Bill of Rights is, in many ways, like the Magna Carta. A revolutionary (literally) document that should be treasured for its historical perspectives, but is ultimately useless to the modern world.

On a different note, too often people claim things as rights that are not, in fact, rights. It's an inefficient way to frame arguments. For example, when smoking bans were first discussed: "We should ban smoking in public places because it impacts my right to clean air!" "We should NOT ban smoking in public places because it's my right to smoke where I please!"

This is unhealthy, ineffectual, and is largely responsible for the failures of our current systems. Here is an interesting book on the subject.


This is not an attempt to preach one-sided politics or be obtuse, just an honest reflection.

EDIT 2: Formatting & TL;DR - Founding fathers were pretty cool guys, but they didn't know everything. As a nation we need to learn to accept, and address this.

I really enjoyed The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin

I am not sure if there is a better source out there, but he did write a book that gives some insight into his legal reasoning that you might find helpful:

"The Tempting of America" Robert Bork

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tempting-America-Robert-Bork/dp/0684843374

I was just thinking about that, too. It's crazy how many 5-4 decisions. Jeffery Toobin talks a little about it in his book The Nine a good read if this kind of thing interests you.

https://www.amazon.com/Free-Speech-Me-But-Not-Thee/dp/006019006X

It’s been along time since I was in law school, but this series allowed me to book several classes, one of which I learned nothing from the professor and all from this book. Seriously good study companion. https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Procedure-6th-Examples-Explanations/dp/0735570337/ref=asc_df_0735570337/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=266180140297&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11575953741332550370&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=200534&hvtargid=pla-804780658992&psc=1

It’s particularly helpful because it has little worksheets at the end of each chapter that allows you to apply the lessons of each chapter, unlike most treatises that just summarize it for you. It’s a practical guide, and it helps immensely with understanding the concepts and being able to apply it to different backgrounds.

I would recommend brushing up on American History. That was the one thing I played catch-up on. It’s amazing how much it helps when reading cases. The historical context and political climate will often help you make sense of a ruling that otherwise seems completely arbitrary. I spent much of my “free” time reading books about historical events and found it to be very helpful. If you want books that are law related, but not necessarily about law, I loved The Nine and Ivy Briefs. Don't worry too much about knowing legal stuff beforehand, you don't want to start school burnt out and stressed out, let your professors take care of that for you.