READING SUGGESTIONS FOR LAW STUDENTS
LEGAL HISTORY
Bowen, Catherine Drinker, Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, 1966.
Friedman, Lawrence M., A History of American Law, 1985.
Friedman, Lawrence M., Crime and Punishment in American History, 1993.
Gilmore, Grant, The Ages of American Law, 1977.
Hall, Kermit, The Magic Mirror: Law in American History, 1989.
Jackson, Robert H., The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy, 1941.
Presser, Stephen B., The Original Misunderstanding: The English, the Americans, and the Dialectic of Federalist
Jurisprudence, 1991.
Simon, James F., What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United
States, 2002.
JUDICIAL BIOGRAPHY
Collective
Barth, Alan, Prophets with Honor: Great Dissents and Great Dissenters in the Supreme Court, 1975.
Schick, Marvin, Learned Hand’s Court, 1978.
Westin, Alan F., Autobiography of the Supreme Court: Off-the-Bench Commentary by the Justices, 1978.
White, G. Edward, The American Judicial Tradition: Profiles of Leading American Judges, 1976.
Individual
Hugo Black
Freyer, Tony, ed., Justice Hugo Black and Modern America, 1990.
Dunne, Gerald T., Hugo Black and the Judicial Revolution, 1977.
Louis Brandeis
Mason, Alpheus Thomas, Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life, 1946.
Urofsky, Melvin, I., Louis D. Brandeis and the Progressive Tradition, 1981.
Strum, Philippa, Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People, 1984.
Sir Edward Coke
Bowen, Catherine Drinker, The Lion and the Throne: the Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke, 1957.
William O. Douglas
Douglas, William O., Go East Young Man: The Early Years, 1974.
Douglas, William O., Court Years, 1939-75, 1980.
Simon, James F., Independent Journey: The Life of William O. Douglas, 1980.
Jerome Frank
Glennon, Robert Jerome, The Iconoclast as Reformer: Jerome Frank’s Impact on American Law, 1985.
Rosenberg, J. Mitchell, Jerome Frank: Jurist and Philosopher, 1970.
Felix Frankfurter
Parrish, Michael E., Felix Frankfurter and His Times: The Reform Years, 1982.
Learned Hand
Griffith, Kathryn, Judge Learned Hand and the Role of the Federal Judiciary, 1973.
Gunther, Gerald, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge, 1994.
John Marshall Harlan
Harlan, Malvina Shanklin, Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911,2001.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Bowen, Catherine Drinker, Yankee from Olympus: Justice Holmes and His Family, 1944.
Lerner, Max, ed., The Mind and Faith of Justice Holmes, 1989 (reprint; originally published in 1943).
Novick, Sheldon, Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1989.
Thurgood Marshall
Williams, Juan, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, 1998.
Harlan Fiske Stone
Mason, Alpheus Thomas, Harlan Fiske Stone: Pillar of the Law, 1956.
Earl Warren
Schwartz, Bernard, Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court – A Judiciary Biography, 1983.
White, G. Edward, Earl Warren: A Public Life, 1982.
CASES, TRIALS & LAWYERS
Cassels, Jamie, The Uncertain Promise of Law: Lessons from Bhopal, 1993.
Curridan, Mark & Phillips, Leroy, Contempt of Court: The Turn of the Century Lynching That Launched
100 Years of Federalism, 1999.
Griswold, Erwin, Ould Fields, New Corne: The Personal Memoirs of a Twentieth Century Lawyer, 1992.
Harr, Jonathan, A Civil Action, 1996.
Kluger, Richard, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for
Equality, 1977.
Lewis, Anthony, Gideon’s Trumpet, 1964.
Petzinger, Thomas, Oil and Honor: The Texaco Pennzoil Wars, 1987.
Nizer, Louis, My Life in Court, 1963.
Schuck, Peter H., Agent Orange on Trial, 1986.
Shannon, James, Texaco and the $10 Billion Jury, 1988.
Sobel, Richard, Bending the Law: The Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy, 1991.
Stern, Gerald M., The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivors’ Unprecedented Lawsuit, 1976.
Stone, Irving, Clarence Darrow for the Defense, 1941.
LAW AND LEGAL THEORY
Blom-Cooper, Louis, The Literature of the Law; An Anthology of Great Writing In and About the Law, 1967.
Cahn, Edmond, The Moral Decision: Right and Wrong in the Light of American Law,
1955.
Cardozo, Benjamin N., The Nature of the Judicial Process, 1920.
Fried, Charles, Contract as Promise, 1981.
Friedman, Lawrence M., American Law: An Introduction, 2d ed. 1998.
Gilmore, Grant, The Death of Contract, 1974.
Levi, Edward M., An Introduction to Legal Reasoning, 1962.
Llewellyn, Karl N., The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study, 1930.
Moliterno, James and Lederer, Fredric, An Introduction to Law, Law Study, and the Lawyer’s Role, 1991.
Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? And Other Essays of Law, Morals, and the Environment, 1996.
SUPREME COURT
Bickel, Alexander, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics, 1962.
Choper, Jesse H., ed., The Supreme Court and its Justices, 1987.
O’Brien, David M., Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics, 1986.
Woodward, Bob and Armstrong, Scott, The Brethren, 1981.
ON WRITING
If you have somehow made it through undergraduate school without spending time with this book, do so as soon as
possible:
Strunk, William, Jr. & White, E.B. The Elements of Style
If you are already familiar with Strunk & White, then try dipping into:
O'Connor, Patricia T., Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English
Truss, Lynne, Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Williams, Joseph M., Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
LAW SCHOOL
McClurg, Andrew J., 1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor’s Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law
School, 2009.
McClurg, Andrew J., The “Companion Text” to Law School: Understanding and Surviving Life with a Law Student,
2012.