Resources for First Year Law Students

This book is for entering law students and law school orientation programs about how to study law. It covers how lawyers use the law, how the legal system works, how to study, how to read and brief case decisions, how to participate in class, how to prepare course outlines, and how to study for exams and write essay exam answers.

Beyond One L: Stories About Finding Meaning and Making a Difference in Law is inspired by Scott Turow’s One L, the classic account of a first-year law student’s experience at Harvard Law School. With an introduction by Turow, Beyond One L explores first-, second-, and third-year experiences in the decades since One L was published. It then moves beyond law school to tell the stories of taking the bar, searching for judicial clerkships, practicing law, and leaving law practice to become a teacher or judge.

Plain English for Lawyers has been a favorite of law students, legal writing teachers, lawyers, and judges for almost 40 years. The sixth edition, now co-authored by Amy Sloan, updates this classic text, including new chapter exercises, while preserving all the approaches that make it such a standard in the field. It remains (in size only!) a little book, small enough and palatable enough not to intimidate over-loaded law students.