★★★★★ 5
Excellent book, not only for lawyers or law students
To begin with, I am neither a lawyer, a law student, nor even a prospective law student. I am, however, someone who has always been interested in the law, primarily for two reasons. First, the law is the principal formal means a society uses to try to resolve conflict among the society's members. Second, and closely related to the first reason, the sum shape, both of content and procedure of the law, is an expression of exactly what a society's values are and the goals a society sets for itself or the standards by which it ideally wishes to be judged.
I found this book to be excellent, informative, well written, and even at parts entertaining. Although meant as a guide for law students to use to prepare for the strenuous exams that are associated with each course they will take in law school, the book provides much, much more, and hence my belief that it can profitably be read by a far larger readership than its ostensible audience. One of the key elements stressed throughout, and exemplified by numerous enlightening examples, is that there usually is no one correct answer to any given legal question. Arguments can be made on at least two sides of any matter based upon, for example, a "plain reading" of the text of a relevant law and the reasonably understandable intent of those who made the law (e.g., a legislature). The authors bring out clearly such sources of legal precedent as laws, government regulations, individual case law decisions by judges, common law, government policy, and specific codes (e.g., the Uniform Commercial Code, or UCC) and show how differing results to a case can readily come about based upon arguments using the different sources to bolster respective cases.
In reality, although by minimal definition a book designed, as said above, to prepare for the taking of law school tests, the book actually also is a good guideline on how to think (not necessarily what to think) about many larger issues in society, including politics and policy issues of all sorts.
Finally, the first two thirds of the book discuss ways to think about the wide range of questions that can be posed to aspiring lawyers and introduces the reader to understanding such distinctions as "forks in the law" and "forks in the facts" (a quite useful distinction to keep in mind). The final part of the book provides solid test taking strategies that are applicable to a wide range of academic testing (e.g., answer the question the professor actually asked and avoid wasting time or effort on ancillary matters not really germane to helping to resolve the issue.) Although some of these may seem obvious once read, the tips are the type of thing that, under pressure of exams, many students often forget to apply.
In sum, I highly recommend this book to those interested in life in the modern world.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2015
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