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wow, that's quite a list! I read it at a dinner with friends and immediately had to share. HN is awesome, and so are you :D I will definitely check out those b

wow, that's quite a list! I read it at a dinner with friends and immediately had to share. HN is awesome, and so are you :D I will definitely check out those books, as you seemed to have hit all the areas I'd be interested in, especially 1 and 4. Would you also recommend anything specifically on the language of law? Legal docs are always a ginormous pain to read, and I want to see how lawyers are taught to structure these things. Again, thank you very much!

anigbrowl 15y ago
Oh, you're welcome! Just be aware that that's a sort of personal preference list, rather than anything systematic. I can't suggest anything specific to read on the language side. You could pick up a copy of Black's Law Dictionary, the standard reference work, but to be honest you'd find good definitions for most of the common legal phrases on Wikipedia or the Cornell LII for free. Learning to read legal citations and look things up in a library is quite tricky at first - and so time-consuming that most lawyers just pay for a subscription to Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw, which is faster and cheaper for them and their clients. Fortunately, you can access much of that information for free on Google Scholar, and most of the citations are already hyperlinked for you. But look at the hyperlinks and read articles on citation to figure out the format, because it's essential to have a firm grasp of context at all times - not unlike variable/object scope in programming. The structuring and phraseology (as opposed to terminology) of legal documents is certainly confusing. All I can suggest is read, read, read. If you go to the public law library, ask for the legal newspapers, and there will likely be half industry news and half case summaries. A lot of these seem obtuse and absurdly technical at first, with the longest cases revolving around the most obscure procedural issues. These are often the most interesting ones, because procedural rules are created by the courts rather than legislatures, and they define how legislation should actually be applied to facts. Statutory laws and fact patterns are like the action in sports or the tactics in warfare: it's often fairly obvious what the issues are, and fairly easy to tell who's winning and losing. But as you gain a deeper understanding of the rules and rule systems (which are in constant flux) then a more complex strategic dimension comes into focus - both within individual cases, and across whole areas of law, or indeed society. It's sort of like a jigsaw puzzle with a large number of pieces; at first it's an intimidating mess and nothing seems to connect with anything else, but before long you find some edge pieces or get lucky to find some connections. You still need a lot of patience, but now it's just a matter of time and patience. Once you have done a few jigsaw puzzles, you develop a system for dealing with new ones. Now imagine a box with lots of different jigsaw puzzle pieces thrown in together, some of which are on fire :-) The other thing that I've found enormously helpful, especially in understanding constitutional law, is time spent with history books. Although courts in general aspire to apply the law objectively, the formation and implementation of law are intensely political activities. As a non-American like yourself, the origins or causes of some legal 'facts of life' are mysterious to me, and my understanding of the relationship between courts, legislatures, and executives often changes as I learn more about the individual political actors and the controversies of the time. At first this was frustrating - there's a lot of history, and a lot of it is disputed intellectual territory - but on the upside, coming to the society from the outside means you don't have as many preconceptions or unconscious biases. Of course, the best thing you can do is make friends with lawyers. I am just a beginning law student, so you should not rely on me as a good guide! But although the field is complex, it is endlessly interesting and accommodates many different cognitive and personal styles.
- kirillzubovsky 15y ago
  Wow, that's quite a response! Now I can see why you've gotten so many karma points on HN! It seems you've looked up a bunch of info about me, but where do I find anything about you? :D

anigbrowl 15y ago

Oh, you're welcome! Just be aware that that's a sort of personal preference list, rather than anything systematic. I can't suggest anything specific to read on the language side. You could pick up a copy of Black's Law Dictionary, the standard reference work, but to be honest you'd find good definitions for most of the common legal phrases on Wikipedia or the Cornell LII for free. Learning to read legal citations and look things up in a library is quite tricky at first - and so time-consuming that most lawyers just pay for a subscription to Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw, which is faster and cheaper for them and their clients. Fortunately, you can access much of that information for free on Google Scholar, and most of the citations are already hyperlinked for you. But look at the hyperlinks and read articles on citation to figure out the format, because it's essential to have a firm grasp of context at all times - not unlike variable/object scope in programming. The structuring and phraseology (as opposed to terminology) of legal documents is certainly confusing. All I can suggest is read, read, read. If you go to the public law library, ask for the legal newspapers, and there will likely be half industry news and half case summaries. A lot of these seem obtuse and absurdly technical at first, with the longest cases revolving around the most obscure procedural issues. These are often the most interesting ones, because procedural rules are created by the courts rather than legislatures, and they define how legislation should actually be applied to facts. Statutory laws and fact patterns are like the action in sports or the tactics in warfare: it's often fairly obvious what the issues are, and fairly easy to tell who's winning and losing. But as you gain a deeper understanding of the rules and rule systems (which are in constant flux) then a more complex strategic dimension comes into focus - both within individual cases, and across whole areas of law, or indeed society. It's sort of like a jigsaw puzzle with a large number of pieces; at first it's an intimidating mess and nothing seems to connect with anything else, but before long you find some edge pieces or get lucky to find some connections. You still need a lot of patience, but now it's just a matter of time and patience. Once you have done a few jigsaw puzzles, you develop a system for dealing with new ones. Now imagine a box with lots of different jigsaw puzzle pieces thrown in together, some of which are on fire :-) The other thing that I've found enormously helpful, especially in understanding constitutional law, is time spent with history books. Although courts in general aspire to apply the law objectively, the formation and implementation of law are intensely political activities. As a non-American like yourself, the origins or causes of some legal 'facts of life' are mysterious to me, and my understanding of the relationship between courts, legislatures, and executives often changes as I learn more about the individual political actors and the controversies of the time. At first this was frustrating - there's a lot of history, and a lot of it is disputed intellectual territory - but on the upside, coming to the society from the outside means you don't have as many preconceptions or unconscious biases. Of course, the best thing you can do is make friends with lawyers. I am just a beginning law student, so you should not rely on me as a good guide! But although the field is complex, it is endlessly interesting and accommodates many different cognitive and personal styles.

kirillzubovsky 15y ago
Wow, that's quite a response! Now I can see why you've gotten so many karma points on HN! It seems you've looked up a bunch of info about me, but where do I find anything about you? :D