The premise of the book is simple: to teach law students how to be law students. So much time is lost in law school with students trying to learn how to be a law student. So many students spend too much time learning how to take notes, prepare for class, case brief, outline, prepare for finals and so much more. No one will teach them these things yet mastery of these things is pivotal to the student's success in law school. This causes the student stress, leads to being unproductive, and it can create an unbalanced lifestyle. Law School in Plain English is the solution to these problems. With its uncompromising plainness and easy to read style, the book covers all aspects of what it means to be a law student, how to succeed, and how to improve quality of life while in law school.

This popular book helps students make the transition from their undergraduate experience to law school learning. Unlike other "introduction to law school" texts, Bridging the Gap offers a different approach because it: Explains the "why" of law, providing students with the context necessary to understand why law school is taught in a certain manner. Explains the "how" of the law, setting out a step-by-step process that will help students adapt to the law school setting. Explains the "what" of the law, giving students the opportunity to practice the problem-solving process by providing numerous exercises in a variety of subject matter areas. Rather than giving only general advice, or black letter law and some practice problems for a specific subject, Bridging the Gap provides the context, the process, and the problems. Written by two former law school professors who used these techniques with thousands of students, Bridging the Gap is a guide to what really works in law school.

“This easy-to-follow guide is useful both as a general course of instruction and as a targeted aid in solving particular legal writing problems.” —Harvard Law Review Clear, concise, down-to-earth, and powerful—all too often, legal writing embodies none of these qualities. Its reputation for obscurity and needless legalese is widespread. For more than twenty years, Bryan A. Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English has helped address this problem by providing lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. The leading guide to clear writing in the field, this indispensable volume encourages legal writers to challenge conventions and offers valuable insights into the writing process that will appeal to other professionals: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. Accessible and witty, Legal Writing in Plain English draws on real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching. Trenchant advice covers all types of legal materials, from analytical and persuasive writing to legal drafting, and the book’s principles are reinforced by sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section. In this new edition, Garner preserves the successful structure of the original while adjusting the content to make it even more classroom-friendly. He includes case examples from the past decade and addresses the widespread use of legal documents in electronic formats. His book remains the standard guide for producing the jargon-free language that clients demand and courts reward. “Those who are willing to approach the book systematically and to complete the exercises will see dramatic improvements in their writing.” —Law Library Journal

“No writer, beginning or experienced, will want to be without this book.” —Jean Auel, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Clan of the Cave Bear and the Earth’s Children series A career as a writer involves much more than the act of writing itself. In The Law (in Plain English) for Writers, Fifth Edition, Leonard DuBoff and Sarah Tugman proffer invaluable advice for the myriad legal and business facets of being a writer. Readers will discover how to succeed in every area affecting a writer's livelihood, such as submissions, dealing with agents, taxes, permissions, royalties, alternatives to mainstream publishers, copyright, book and magazine contracts, and how to prevent disputes. This newly revised edition, keeping up with the changing legal landscape, contains information on a variety of legal issues pertinent to writers of all types, including: Updated coverage on issues such as how to avoid trouble posed by the interplay between the right to free speech, privacy, and defamation law Changes in the copyright law, procedures, and recent cases on copyright protection and infringement Updated and revised chapters on the business of writing New and updated Internet resources For writers of all levels, this comprehensive resource is the key to turning a writing career into a sustainable livelihood.

The National Jurist featured Plain English for Lawyers in its August 2021 list of "Three Books to Read During Law School," saying, "This one speaks for itself. The book is a quick punch of information: it provides helpful tips to improve your legal writing while familiarizing you with many of the terms of art you are likely to see down the road as a legal professional." Wydick's Plain English for Lawyers--now in its fifth edition--has been a favorite of law students, legal writing teachers, lawyers, and judges for almost 40 years. In January 2005, the Legal Writing Institute gave Wydick its Golden Pen Award for having written Plain English for Lawyers. The Legal Writing Institute is a non-profit organization that provides a forum for discussion and scholarship about legal writing, analysis, and research. The Institute has over 1,300 members representing all of the ABA-accredited law schools in the United States. Its membership also includes law teachers from other nations, English teachers, and practicing lawyers. The LWI award states: "Plain English for Lawyers ... has become a classic. Perhaps no single work has done more to improve the writing of lawyers and law students and to promote the modern trend toward a clear, plain style of legal writing." The National Jurist recently featured Plain English for Lawyers on its list of "Three Books to Read During Law School," saying, "This one speaks for itself. The book is a quick punch of information: it provides helpful tips to improve your legal writing while familiarizing you with many of the terms of art you are likely to see down the road as a legal professional." How does the fifth edition of Plain English for Lawyers differ from its predecessors? It remains (in size only!) a little book, small enough and palatable enough not to intimidate over-loaded law students. "Most of the text remains the same," Wydick says, "but in the past seven years I've learned some new things about writing in English, and I want to share that with the readers." In addition, the exercises at the end of the chapters are different (a welcome change for long-time teachers who are tired of the old ones). Finally, the teacher's manual includes additional exercises that teachers can give to students who want or need extra practice.

Open Book: The Inside Track to Law School Success, 2E is a book that every JD and LLM law student needs to read, either before classes start or as they get going in their 1L year. Now in an expanded second edition, the book explains in a clear and easygoing, conversational manner what law professors expect from their students both in classes and exams. The authors, award-winning teachers with a wealth of classroom experience, give students an inside look at law school by explaining how, despite appearances to the contrary, classes connect to exams and exams connect to the practice of law. Open Book introduces them to the basic structure of our legal system and to the distinctive features of legal reasoning. To prepare students for exams, the book explains in clear and careful detail what exams are designed to test. It then devotes a single, clearly written chapter to each step of the process of answering exams. It also contains a wealth of material, both in the book and digitally, on preparing for exams. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Open Book comes with a free suite of 18 actual law school exams in Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property and Torts, written and administered by law professors. These exams include not only questions, but: (1) annotations from the professors explaining what they were looking for; (2) model answers written by the professors themselves; and (3) actual student answers, with professor comments that explain why certain answers were stronger of weaker. As Open Book explains, there is no better way to prepare for exams than by practicing, and these unique materials will enable students to get the most out of their pre-exam practice.

In this linguistic study of law school education, Mertz shows how law professors employ the Socratic method between teacher and student, forcing the student to shift away from moral and emotional terms in thinking about conflict, toward frameworks of legal authority instead.