I know that so-called "experiential learning" is the current rage. Yet, experiential learning may not be the best way to learn some things, and is certainly not the only way to learn. Consider this: If you could learn the lesson of the horrible and painful consequences of placing your hand into the flame on your kitchen stove burner by having your mother or father explain what will happen, then would you really rather learn that lesson by actually placing your hand into the flame and experiencing those horrible and painful consequences? Yes, we learn by our mistakes--our maybe we don't--; but we can learn a lot without making the mistakes. Others have been there before. We can learn from their mistakes. Reading is a primary means of learning from other people's mistakes. We (including you) are not the first to travel the many paths of law. We can learn from what others have learned on these well-trodden paths. That said, these suggested readings are not for the faint of heart.
Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander & Linda F. Harrison, The Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Environment of Business in a Diverse Society (New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2012) ("What this text strives to do as you study it is to open your eyes to ethical and diversity issues so, where applicable, they become a relevant part of your business decision-making process, just as legal considerations are. Our aim is to teach you the legal, regulatory, and ethical implications of business decisions in the context of diversity, as business cannot be divorced from the reality of the world we live. We of course do not tell you how you must think about such issues on a personal level, as you are able to hold whatever opinions you wish. Rather, we make you aware of how your business decisions may be impacted by issues you might not otherwise have considered. . . . We want you to consider these factors as a routine part of your business making since the reality is that they will have an impact." Id. at 21-22. Here are the chapter titles: "Introduction to the Business and Ethics Environment in a Diverse Society," "Alternative Dispute Resolution," "The Court System and Legal Process," "Administrative Law," "Contracts and Sales," "Torts," "Property, Real and Personal," "Business Crimes," "Secured Transactions and Bankruptcy," "Agency and Business Organizations," "The Employment Relationship and Equal Employment Opportunity," "Labor and Management Relations," "Securities Regulation and Compliance," "Antitrust and Trade Regulation," "Intellectual Property," "Environmental Law and Business," and "International Trade and Business." As you work through this textbook you will have that "OMG-moment," where you will say to yourself, 'I should have read this book at the beginning of law school, and certainly before deciding what courses to take in my second-year.' Now you know. It is not too late.).
Lisa Schultz Bressman, Edward L. Rubin & Kevin M. Stack, The Regulatory State (Boston & New York: Wolters Kluwer law & Business, 2010) ("This book provides an introduction to the modern regulatory state, which is the collection of federal governmental laws and institutions that determine significant aspects of social and economic policy today. The regulatory state is the dominant feature of our nation's governance system. It has not aways been this way. Prior to the modern era, federal regulatory efforts were haphazard. Social and economic policy were largely determined by the forces of supply and demand--in other words, the market. And the common law, which is developed mainly by state judges in the process of deciding cases, provided most of the important rules governing private conduct. But during the past century and a half, this regime has been largely displaced by statutes and regulations. Statutes are laws enacted by legislatures, such as Congress, and regulation are laws issued by administrative agencies, such as the Department of Transportation or the Environmental Protection Agency or the Federal Communications Commission. Statutes and regulations are paramount in this book because they are principal sources of law in the regulatory state. We examine judicial decisions as well, but they play more of a supporting role here than in many other law school books." Id. at xxi.).
David G. Epstein, Richard D. Freer, Michael J. Roberts & George B. Shepherd, Business Structures, Third Edition (American Casebook Series) (St. Paul, MN: West, 2010) (From the "Dedication": "We wrote Business Structures primarily for students who did not take any 'business courses' in college. Two of us did not take any 'business courses' in college. And then we took this course in law school, and it was our worst law school experience (until, years later, we attended our first law school faculty meeting). We wrote this book to spare you that fate." Id. at iii.).
Laura P. Hartman & Joe DesJardins, Business Ethics: Decision-Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008) ("This textbook provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the ethical issues arising in business. Students unfamiliar with ethics will find themselves as unprepared for careers in business as students who are unfamiliar with accounting and finance. It is fair to say that students will not be fully prepared, even within traditional disciplines such as accounting, finance, human resources management, marketing, and management, unless they are sufficiently knowledgeable about the ethical issues that arise specifically within those fields." "While other solid introductory textbooks are available, several major features make this book distinctive. We emphasize a decision-making approach to ethics and we provide strong pedagogical support for both teachers and students throughout the entire book. In addition, we bring both both of these strengths to students though a pragmatic discussion of issues with which they are already often familiar, thus approaching them through subjects that have already generated their interest." Id. vii. If you are going to be a business, commercial, or corporate lawyers, shouldn't you know the potential ethical issues facing your clients?).
Howell E. Jackson, Louis Kaplow, Steven M. Shavell, W. Kip Viscusi & David Cope, Analytical Methods for Lawyers, Second Edition (New York: Thomson Reuters/Foundation Press, 2011). (Decision Analysis, Game and Information, Contracting, Accounting, Finance, Microeconomics, Economic Analysis of Law, Fundamentals of Statistical Analysis, and Multivariate Statistics).
Mark Weston Janis, International Law, Sixth Edition (Aspen Student Treatise Series) (New York: Wolters Kluver Law & Business, 2012) ("This book endeavors to introduce the discipline of international law in such a way as to clarify and order a dauntingly complex and variegated subject. . . . I introduce international law not only in its traditional public or interstate sense, but also in its increasingly important private and commercial aspects." Id. at xv. "Three questions more or less structure the text: What are international legal rules? What is international legal process? What role does international law play in international relations? . . . The book is meant to reflect international law generally and should prove useful read either on its own or as a supplement to any of the standard American legal or political casebooks on the subject." Id. at xvi. "It is a sorry state of affairs to have to count the United States as one of the countries most often in non-compliance with ICJ [International Court of Justice] decisions." Id. at 150-151.).
Emma Coleman Jordan & Angela P. Harris, Economic Justice: Race, Gender, Identity and Economics: Cases and Materials, Second Edition (New York/Foundation Press, 2005, 2011) ("We live in a society organized according to two master principles: capitalism and democracy. Although principles and their associated values, institutions, and norms are integral to American life, they often seem to exist in different worlds. Capitalism is often thought of as belonging to the 'private' sphere, whereas democracy belongs in the 'public' sphere. Capitalism is the business of business organizations and of economic analysis; democracy is the business of politicians and voters and of political analysis. Within the academy, a similar split seems to have created two cultures, like the ''two cultures' of science and the humanities of which C.P. Snow originally spoke. Economic analysis has developed a culture of scientific expertise in which developing testable hypotheses with mathematical rigor, constructing quantitative analysis, and making predictions are principal values. Although social scientists increasingly analyze democratic institutions in this way as well, discussions of democracy have more traditionally been the bailiwick of moral philosophers, and more recently critical theorists, who use the language of morality, justice, and the methodological tools associated with the humanities to pursue the 'ought' rather than the 'is.'" "The split obtains in legal scholarship as well. In the last few decades, the law and economics movement has had a tremendous impact on legal studies. Like its parent discipline economics, law and economics focuses on questions of transactional efficiency and tends to ignore questions of distribution or justice; it seeks to accurately describe how legal rules work (or don't work), and to the extent it is normative rather than descriptive, the assumed goal is greater efficiency. Traditional legal scholarship, however, has taken the pursuit of distributional justice, fairness, and democratic process as central to its analyses. In the last few decades critical legal scholarship has developed an even more openly moral discourse of justice, focused on the pursuit of equality. Traditional and critical scholars, however, have seldom ventured into the territory of efficiency or the systemic analysis of transactions, just as law and economics scholars have seldom ventured into the territory of fairness and equality. . . ." "The phrase 'economic justice' signals our aim: rather than maintaining the tacit assumption that 'justice' has nothing to do with economics and economics nothing to do with social justice, we hope to engage the two cultures with one another. What can economics tell us about democracy and the law? What can theories of justice tell us about economic theory and law? Why is there no legal language of 'class' in the United States, and what might one look like? Rather than asking students to specialize in one or the other discourse, as current legal pedagogy implicitly does, this casebook openly engages students in the project of learning from both discourses, and using each as a means to gain insights on the other. . . . " "In this casebook, we use the problem of racial and gender injustice as a vehicle for engaging both critical theory and economic theory. Just as race, gender, and class seem inextricably intertwined, economic and critical analysis both seem crucial to unraveling the knot of racial and gender inequality. Moreover, economic analysis and critical analysis may need to influence and be influenced by one another in order for a truly incisive and transformative dialogue about race and gender to emerge in the legal academy and in American society more generally." Id. at v-vi.).
Avery Wiener Katz, Foundations of The Economic Approach to Law (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis, 2006).
John Monahan & Laurens Walker, Social Science in Law: Cases and Materials, Seventh Edition (New York: Thompson Reuters/Foundation Press, 2010) ("The purpose of the book should be clear at the outset: to apprise the reader of the actual and potential uses of social sciences in the American legal process and how those uses might be evaluated. We here view social science as an analytical tool in the law, familiarity with which will heighten the lawyer's professional effectiveness and sharpen the legal scholar's insights. The principal alternative to this 'inside' perspective on the relationship of social science to law is the 'law and society' or 'sociology of law' approach which seeks to understand the functioning of 'law' as a social system. [] In choosing an orientation from within the legal system rather than that of the law and society observer, we mean no disparagement of the latter. . . . " Id. at v.).
Roberta Romano, Foundations of Corporate Law, Second (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis, 2006).
Maxwell L. Stearns & Todd J. Zywicki, Public Choice Concepts and Applications in Law (American Casebook Series) (St. Paul, MN: West, 2009).
Charles J. Tabb & Ralph Brubaker, Bankruptcy Law: Principles, Policies, and Practice, Third Edition (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis,, 2010).
Robert E. Stout & George G. Triantis, Foundations of Commercial Law (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis, 2006).
What one wants to accomplish in the first and second years of law school is the acquisition of foundational knowledge; that is, knowledge and skills which will serve you well no matter what areas of law one ultimately pursues or, for that matter, even should one decide not to pursue a law career.
Also, since some of you may be entering the full-time work force for the first time, or are contemplating a career change (into law), you might find working through the following book useful.
Richard N. Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual For Job-Hunters and Career-Changers 2012 (40th Anniversary Edition) (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2012).
