TO: BOOKS READERS (ESPECIALLY FIRST-YEAR LAW STUDENTS)
FR: Prof. LONG
DA: April 16, 2007
RE: SUGGESTED SUMMER 2007 READING
The summer–that is, from graduation day to a week before fall classes begin–consists of thirteen weeks or ninety-one days. Below is a list of eighteen books (one book every five days) you might find worthwhile summer reading. Most of these books are available in paperback.
Since the concept "good lawyer" is a highly contested concept, I refrain from suggesting that reading and studying these books will make one a good or better lawyer, or even a good or better legal thinker. Then again, I do not see how reading and studying these books will hurt. I think reading these books will help you gain a broader perspective and, thereby, supplement the very task oriented approach you will encounter in your summer employment.
Amar, Akhil Reed, America’s Constitution: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2005).
Bix, Brian, Jurisprudence: Theory and Context, 2nd ed. (London: Sweet Maxwell, 1999).
Breyer, Stephen, Breaking the Vicious Circle: Towards Effective Risk Regulation (Cambridge:
Harvard U. Press, 1993).
Cass, Ronald A., The Rule of Law in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2001).
Coase, R. H., The Firm, The Market, and The Law (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1988).
Epstein ,Richard A., Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1985).
Hardin, Russell, One For All: The Logic of Group Conflict (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1995).
Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1961).
Howard, Philip K., The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: How Fairness Went Too Far (New York: Random House, 2001).
Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 2002).
Katz, Leo, Ill-Gotten Gains: Evasion, Blackmail, Fraud, and Kindred Puzzles of the Law (Chicago: U. of Chicago, 1996).
Kennedy, David & William W. Fisher, III, eds., The Canon of American Legal Thought (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 2006).
Kronman, Anthony T., The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1993).
Lessig, Lawrence, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity (New York: Penguin Press, 2004).
Levi, Edward H., An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1949).
Packer, Herbert L., The Limits of the Criminal Sanction (Stanford: Stanford U. Press, 1968).
Posner, Eric A., Law and Social Norms (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 2000).
White, James Boyd, Justice as Translation: An Essay in Cultural and Legal Criticism (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1990).
