Best 1L Prep Book?

[inlovewithlaw]

What do you think is (are) the best law school prep book(s)?

I thought it would be interesting to get everyone's take. Hopefully this thread will be of help to many future law students, including myself.

[M_Cool]

Getting to Maybe is good though you won't understand a lot of it until you are in the midst of classes.

[UnbiasedObserver]

If you want background information, "Law School Confidential" isn't a bad choice.

If you want substantive legal knowledge to get started before law school, I recommend to take it easy and just read (lightly!) some of the E&E's (Examples and Explanations series, by Aspen publishers).  The purpose of reading these is  NOT to memorize or gain a deep understanding (hopefully you'll gain that later!)but to acquaint yourself with the terminology and the "black letter law," and that's it.  Every teacher has their own way of teaching, and may disagree with parts of the book, so again, don't delve too deeply into it.  (Also, you need to relax before law school.)

[holler21]

There really are none that can "prep" you for law school.

And I vehemently disagree with Unbiased Observer's suggestion about reading E&E books.  Don't do it.  There is virtually no gain to you and a lot of risk like thinking you already know the material, looking like an a-hole to your classmates, etc.  If you want to keep your mind sharp, read some good periodicals like NYT, WSJ, Economist, etc.  But take it from me as a recent graduate (and currently preparing for the bar), you are wise to savor the weeks before law school begins and relax and enjoy the freedom you have while it lasts . . .

[hawvaad2008]

There really are none that can "prep" you for law school.

And I vehemently disagree with Unbiased Observer's suggestion about reading E&E books.  Don't do it.  There is virtually no gain to you and a lot of risk like thinking you already know the material, looking like an a-hole to your classmates, etc.  If you want to keep your mind sharp, read some good periodicals like NYT, WSJ, Economist, etc.  But take it from me as a recent graduate (and currently preparing for the bar), you are wise to savor the weeks before law school begins and relax and enjoy the freedom you have while it lasts . . .

To each their own.  However, I would strongly encourage the use of the E&E's and other study guides.  They do a great job of getting you to think about law school hypos, and illustrating the exceptions to blackletter law. 

I would also strongly recommend signing up for the LEEWS seminar and purchasing the LEEWS Exam Primer.  This helped me significantly and I was top 10% at a top 20 largely in part to the help and direction the LEEWS seminar gave me. 

Hope this helps.  Good luck. 

[I am the Lorax]

"The Nine" by Jeffrey Toobin will give you a good jumping off point into the legal world.  But one of the biggest bars to success in law school is overthinking it.

My advice is to stop worrying about what books will best prepare you and start planning a pre-law vacation

[UnbiasedObserver]

There really are none that can "prep" you for law school.

And I vehemently disagree with Unbiased Observer's suggestion about reading E&E books.  Don't do it.  There is virtually no gain to you and a lot of risk like thinking you already know the material, looking like an a-hole to your classmates, etc.  If you want to keep your mind sharp, read some good periodicals like NYT, WSJ, Economist, etc.  But take it from me as a recent graduate (and currently preparing for the bar), you are wise to savor the weeks before law school begins and relax and enjoy the freedom you have while it lasts . . .

While I respect your opinion, please note that:

1) I qualified my statement by stating that it is also important to relax and enjoy his/her last "real" summer.

2) I also qualified my statement by stating that the OP should only do it to get a very cursory overview of a class, and nothing more.  I would assume that the OP would be able to infer that this means that the OP isn't going to know all of the material.

3) I'm not a 0L.  I relaxed AND began some very light reading of some E&E's before law school, and I feel that it helped me.  I'm top 5% at my school.  So reasonable people can disagree, my friend.  This might not help for some, but it might help others.  So there's no need to vehemently disagree!   

[lawtransfer22]

Getting to Maybe is good. It gets you thinking about all of the different angles that you will need to talk about on your exams. It really drives home that there are multiple things you need to argue even with questions that seem straight forward, a point many 1Ls miss. Although I have not concrete proof, I would guess a great deal of the people that walk out of exams feeling good only to be rudely surprised are the ones who get too focused on one side (the one they think is right) and fail to adequately address the other side or the minority view and so on (this is based on my experiences with other students who did poorly but hit all of the same issues give or take that I did). But what the above poster said is true, half of the time while reading the book you will have almost no idea what they are talking about.

[;;;;;]

What do you think is (are) the best law school prep book(s)?

I thought it would be interesting to get everyone's take. Hopefully this thread will be of help to many future law students, including myself.

A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius worked fine for me.  But read it twice.

Relax! you will be doing plenty of law school reading next semester.  I think I read something like 3,000 pages of cases and wrote 250 pages of memos/briefs last year.

My advice is enjoy what is left of your summer.

[hilikus]

i have really enjoyed the aspen series of books, they're informative and interesting...although i've had to stop and start procedure a few times...i've been reading them just so i wouldn't be going in blind...ive also read law school confidential as well as planet law school...both are informative...there's a ton of stuff out there