Law Student

Law students often wonder if they should keep their law school textbooks and study aids. They think they might be useful for the bar exam or a helpful reference once practicing law. Law students may also feel bad that they are getting rid of textbooks with so many helpful notes in the margins. This article explains why law students should not keep their old books.

Bar Exam. Your textbooks and study aids will be of little use on the bar exam for two reasons.

First, most law students will prepare for the bar exam using Barbri, PMBR, or a similar bar exam preparation course, which will provide all of the bar preparation materials that the student will need. These materials are also more accurate regarding the correct rules to apply on the multistate (one of the bar exam tests). For example, the textbook or study aids may discuss various rules applied in various jurisdictions, but on the bar exam, only one rule should be applied.

Second, law students won’t have time to use their old textooks and study aids because they will have a hard enough time reading all the Barbri (or other bar exam prep course) materials.

Practice of Law. Your textbooks and study aids will be of little use in the practice of law for a few reasons. First, the textbooks don’t necessarily reflect the law in your jurisdiction. Second, you will use a treatise or hornbook to better understand legal concepts rather than an old textbook or study aid because the treatise is probably kept up to date, has an easy topical index, and consisely states the black letter rules.

One Possible Exception. It is possible that you might use a Nutshell or Hornbook to get a quick overview of an area of the law. However, if you do need one of those, you will probably want a recent edition, so it is still probably best to get rid of your current books. Besides, while practicing law, you will probably just get the information online. Further, the availability of online legal information continues to grow, so there may be far more information online in the future than there is now.

Conclusion. Don’t save your old textbooks or study aids. Sell them at your school bookstore, eBay, or at Amazon.com. Or give them to an organization that sends textbooks to Africa or another country where they can be put to use (and save some trees). As an attorney, you will have better resources at your fingertips than your old law school books.