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#Should law students buy new or used textbooks for their law school classes?

I advise a law student not to buy any textbooks, if 1) he or she wants to save money, 2) his or her studying philosophy and ways of thinking about law school subjects are similar to mine, 3) the law school library is sufficiently stocked and managed well enough, and 4) his or her view on the role of the law school in providing legal education is similar to mine.

I will elaborate my reasons below, but it must be understood that I was trained in a common law legal system and educated in a particular Asian law school with a curriculum and pedagogical method modeled largely upon the English style of legal education. I do not know if my advice will be relevant or applicable in a different context, like in a US or UK law school.

I bought used textbooks for my first and second years of law school, when I had to do compulsory subjects. Subsequently, I stopped buying textbooks. Instead, I borrowed textbooks from the law school library. On hindsight, I feel that I should not have bought any textbooks at all. I could comfortably rely on my law school library for all my textbook needs.

My reasons are:

First, assuming the law school library is sufficiently stocked and managed well enough (as mine was), the required textbooks can be easily obtained from the library. They are on the regular loans shelves. If they are loaned out, some copies will be made available for short-term borrowing. If even these copies are loaned out, there should be reference copies of the more popular books not available for borrowing which must be used in the library.

Just pop over to the library and find the books. Some legwork is inevitable, but it is worth it, considering how expensive law textbooks are.

Second, textbooks are of limited use and are hence not worth purchasing. My law school relies primarily on English textbooks written for the UK legal system. These textbooks usually provide broad overviews, but often do not go into deeper analysis. It must be understood that textbooks are only secondary literature meant to give beginners a leg-up or experienced lawyers and students a refresher, and as such often summarise and gloss over points. For more meaningful and deeper discussions, and to understand the nuances and complexities of the law (essential to getting good grades), the law student has to, amongst other things, read law journal articles, monographs and the actual cases themselves. Reading and relying on textbooks is simply insufficient. In fact, if one reads and understands the relevant cases and articles, there is no need to rely on textbooks at all. After a while, I realised that I use textbooks primarily for their citations, which expedited my research and pointed me towards the relevant primary literature I focused on. If there are important bits in textbooks (they are usually in bits rather than large chunks), I simply photocopy those bits.

Furthermore, textbooks have limited longevity. Certain areas of the law develop quickly. Textbooks become outdated fast. The more important and useful textbooks are regularly updated, so the irony is that the more useful a textbook is, the more likely its value and usefulness will quickly depreciate, should a law student buy it. The law library will probably have the latest edition of the textbooks, so why not borrow instead?

Third, textbooks stymie the law student s creativity and thinking. Textbooks are structured. This quality makes a textbook simultaneously useful and limiting. Read a textbook first, and if the law student is not conscious about this, he or she will think about the subject in the same way the textbook writer thinks about the subject. It is sometimes hard to extricate oneself from the thought patterns that the textbook imposes, and this is bad for creativity and the development of a refreshing point of view.

I find it more profitable to read the cases and articles by themselves first, and to try making sense of them by myself, with sparing resort to textbooks where appropriate (e.g. for clarification). Textbooks supplement, and should not be thinking crutches. Although it is more of a struggle this way, I find that it makes the study of law more rewarding. In this way, I feel that I can better develop a more creative and refreshing perspective on the subject and obtain better grades.

Fourth, I feel that since I have paid school fees, the law school should provide all the resources required for my legal education, which include making sufficient copies of textbooks availabe for use. This is a point of principle. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect this. Law school is expensive. Paying law students should expect good education. Providing sufficient books available for use to the student body is a basic obligation of the law school. Law students should not be expected to buy expensive textbooks which are of limited use in addition to paying expensive school fees, when the law school should adequately support its students in the first place.

Written 190w ago 750 views Not for Reproduction