Although most of the reading for your first year of law school will be in required case books or readings assigned by your professors, there are some additional study aids that can be very helpful during your first year. These aids can be used to clarify certain points of law, to gain an indepth understanding of various rules of law, or as guides when studying for exams. These resources are hornbooks, nutshells, and commercial outlines and are available on reserve at the Law Library Circulation Desk.
Hornbooks are generally single volumes, although frequently of 500 pages or more, that cover a single area of law in a coherent, explanatory fashion. Hornbooks are frequently written by the same authors that wrote your casebook and usually cover the same leading cases and rules of law. Hornbooks can be used to clarify points of law or cases that are unclear. They can also be used for outlining and reviewing material in preparation for final examinations. Some hornbooks that cover first year classes are listed below. These books are available at the Circulation Desk and can be checked out for three hours.
Popular first year hornbooks are:
Shapo, Principles of Tort Law, 2d ed Reserve KF 1250 .Z9 .S53 2003
Perillo, Calamari and Perillo on Contracts, 6th ed Reserve KF 801 .C26 2009
Stoebuck and Whitman, The Law of Property, 3d ed Reserve KF 570 .C86 2000
LaFave, Criminal Law, 4th ed Reserve KF 9219 .L38 2003
Nutshells are a series of paperback books that cover a single legal subject in an easily readable format with less discussion of cases and more general explanation of the rules of law. Nutshells that will be useful for first year students are:
Contracts Reserve KF 801 .Z9 .R62 2006
Criminal Law Reserve KF 9219.85 .L63 2009
Real Property Reserve KF 570 .Z9 .B47 2005
Torts Reserve KF 1250 .Z9 .K53 2005
Outlines are commercially produced guides that set out the rules of law and exceptions to the rules for a given legal subject. Some faculty warn against using the commercially produced works as it can influence a student's own efforts at compiling their outline for final exams. They can be a good overview of a legal topic, though. Several legal publishers produce sets of outlines on various topics. Some of the most popular are: Black Letter series, published by WestExamples and Explanations, published by Aspen Publishing Understanding series, published by LexisNexis.
Another set of materials that students request frequently is the CD collection, Sum and Substance. These audio CDs on a variety of legal subject are convenient, especially for commuters. All of the Sum and Substance CDs are located in our Main Media collection in the Reference area. The first year subjects that are available include:
Constitutional Law KF 4550 .C53 2005
Contracts KF 802 .Z9 W52 2007
Legal Research KF 240 .B47 2001
Torts KF 1250 .A2 F46 2005
Last updated 2/10
