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Reading Like a Lawyer: Time-Saving Strategies for Reading Law Like an Expert
The ability to read law well is a critical, indispensable skill that can make or break the academic career of any aspiring lawyer. Fortunately, the ability to read law well (quickly and accurately) is a skill that can be acquired through knowledge and practice. The sooner the student masters these skills, the greater the rewards. Using seven specific reading strategies, reinforced with hands-on exercises at the end of each chapter, this book shows students how they can read law efficiently, effectively, powerfully, and confidently. Reading Like a Lawyer is divided into 3 parts: * Part I introduces the reader to the fundamentals of legal reasoning upon which law-based reading builds; * Part II introduces the reader to concrete strategies for reading effectively in law school; * and Part III teaches strategies for reading law outside of the law school context.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 22, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 19, 2018
Summary: Excellent book if you are a law student. With a little bit of imagination it likely also works for those that are reading a standard piece or type of material for a particular purpose.
NOTE: This review is written from the perspective of my interest in learning all that has been known about speed reading in preparation for making a speed reading course. I naturally learned to speed read, i.e. tested around 2500wpm vs. the average Native English speed of 150-250wpm and average college educated speeds of 300, and this was recommended by my partner in crime on the course, a person who has been studying and teaches this topic.
If you are reading this book to understand how to read faster or to research speed reading, I would say that you might want to read The Psychology of Reading first. It has more details on what reading actually is. However, if you wanted to expand on how to read faster, via purposeful reading, the manner in which this book considers the topic is quite good.
In Part 1 - She makes the case the for why reading will advance one's law career. she talks about the relationship between reading and thinking for the law school student. This is an easy audience and some might think it unnecessary. However, I think her point here, even more than the speed readers is that speed reading is an exercise in comprehension more than actual speed. As you get faster, you could start to give up some of this if you haven't really trained yourself to think about speed-reading correctly. A lawyer might have a stack of cases that MUST be read. How does one even approach the exercise as far as goals given their current ability.
McKinney has broken up the various types of reading that one might see as a law student expertly. She then provides questions one could ask themselves while reading. Her ideas here are two fold. First that one might be reading slowly b/c they are not fully engaged. Second the difficulty with being fully engaged might be one of needed to think through what engagement is, i.e. the questions that are relevant. My analogy for this is as follows: It's a little bit like, if you go to Disney World, yes you saw everything, but I want to point your limited attention to X,Y,Z. To me this is very important. So many that focus on comprehension think that you should take every single nugget out of a piece. That's insane. That's like going to Disney World and swearing that you saw every single item. But it's also not true if you spent a day in the Magic Kingdom that you didn't go there at all, or that you didn't experience it in a meaningful way. McKinney's point is that given you've got to get through the material with limited time and that the overview of multiple cases is necessary, if you've got to make choices, let's make sure you see come out of the exercise with a specific set of knowledge. I love it.
The last part of Part II Review, Rephrase, and Record is about active reading and while directed toward Law Students isn't so different from what I do (very reassuring). There's more science to it, which is in the previous book I mentioned. But the point is, if you're going to fly by the material because your career deems it necessary or just because you prefer to speed read, then take a moment and absorb the information. The ways to do it are - Take Notes, really think about what you're reading by writing a brief (or a goodreads summary, etc). I can attest, at least personally, this really does work.
Part III will likely be seen to the person who is still acquiring this skill as superfluous. For her audience, law students, the focus is reading law school case law. However, this next section is how to approach reading statutes and cases on cases. The former has a particular format and approach that can be at first quite difficult to approach. The latter seems excessive. This is particularly because it is uncurated. She walks you through it and how to think critically while reading it.
I would say that every industry has this type of material. If you fail to read it, your arguments and discourse about a topic are more basic. You fail to even understand the point of view of the person that you are talking to. Moreover, for those that are more familiar with the art of speed reading, greater familiarity, more instances of reading in a topic make you faster. If you've been to Disney already once, you will be able to find your way around faster the second time and with greater knowledge of what to avoid and what to spend more time on. I wish she would have said that explicitly, but I think she's got what is needed here (or if she said it upfront, I may have missed it).
I would not skip the appendix. There are a lot of great things there for those picking up the craft.
NOTE: This review is written from the perspective of my interest in learning all that has been known about speed reading in preparation for making a speed reading course. I naturally learned to speed read, i.e. tested around 2500wpm vs. the average Native English speed of 150-250wpm and average college educated speeds of 300, and this was recommended by my partner in crime on the course, a person who has been studying and teaches this topic.
If you are reading this book to understand how to read faster or to research speed reading, I would say that you might want to read The Psychology of Reading first. It has more details on what reading actually is. However, if you wanted to expand on how to read faster, via purposeful reading, the manner in which this book considers the topic is quite good.
In Part 1 - She makes the case the for why reading will advance one's law career. she talks about the relationship between reading and thinking for the law school student. This is an easy audience and some might think it unnecessary. However, I think her point here, even more than the speed readers is that speed reading is an exercise in comprehension more than actual speed. As you get faster, you could start to give up some of this if you haven't really trained yourself to think about speed-reading correctly. A lawyer might have a stack of cases that MUST be read. How does one even approach the exercise as far as goals given their current ability.
McKinney has broken up the various types of reading that one might see as a law student expertly. She then provides questions one could ask themselves while reading. Her ideas here are two fold. First that one might be reading slowly b/c they are not fully engaged. Second the difficulty with being fully engaged might be one of needed to think through what engagement is, i.e. the questions that are relevant. My analogy for this is as follows: It's a little bit like, if you go to Disney World, yes you saw everything, but I want to point your limited attention to X,Y,Z. To me this is very important. So many that focus on comprehension think that you should take every single nugget out of a piece. That's insane. That's like going to Disney World and swearing that you saw every single item. But it's also not true if you spent a day in the Magic Kingdom that you didn't go there at all, or that you didn't experience it in a meaningful way. McKinney's point is that given you've got to get through the material with limited time and that the overview of multiple cases is necessary, if you've got to make choices, let's make sure you see come out of the exercise with a specific set of knowledge. I love it.
The last part of Part II Review, Rephrase, and Record is about active reading and while directed toward Law Students isn't so different from what I do (very reassuring). There's more science to it, which is in the previous book I mentioned. But the point is, if you're going to fly by the material because your career deems it necessary or just because you prefer to speed read, then take a moment and absorb the information. The ways to do it are - Take Notes, really think about what you're reading by writing a brief (or a goodreads summary, etc). I can attest, at least personally, this really does work.
Part III will likely be seen to the person who is still acquiring this skill as superfluous. For her audience, law students, the focus is reading law school case law. However, this next section is how to approach reading statutes and cases on cases. The former has a particular format and approach that can be at first quite difficult to approach. The latter seems excessive. This is particularly because it is uncurated. She walks you through it and how to think critically while reading it.
I would say that every industry has this type of material. If you fail to read it, your arguments and discourse about a topic are more basic. You fail to even understand the point of view of the person that you are talking to. Moreover, for those that are more familiar with the art of speed reading, greater familiarity, more instances of reading in a topic make you faster. If you've been to Disney already once, you will be able to find your way around faster the second time and with greater knowledge of what to avoid and what to spend more time on. I wish she would have said that explicitly, but I think she's got what is needed here (or if she said it upfront, I may have missed it).
I would not skip the appendix. There are a lot of great things there for those picking up the craft.
July 28, 2016
The lack of reviews for this book is what prompted me to write this note. The bottom line is: you can skim the chapter headings and get the book's value.
I found many ideas in the book to be overly theoretical, and I'm sure I'll quickly forget them when faced with a long reading assignment. I expected a practical guide to help me read more efficiently, but instead I got a long-winded book that should have ended on page 50.
The book does more to reassure students and help them "familiarize" with the subject matter than what it promises - to help students read better. Legal reading cannot be divorced from legal analysis and this book is quite lacking on the second. Even the end of chapter exercises doesn't have sample answers. How am I supposed to improve my reading and analysis skills if I can't see my own mistakes?
I found many ideas in the book to be overly theoretical, and I'm sure I'll quickly forget them when faced with a long reading assignment. I expected a practical guide to help me read more efficiently, but instead I got a long-winded book that should have ended on page 50.
The book does more to reassure students and help them "familiarize" with the subject matter than what it promises - to help students read better. Legal reading cannot be divorced from legal analysis and this book is quite lacking on the second. Even the end of chapter exercises doesn't have sample answers. How am I supposed to improve my reading and analysis skills if I can't see my own mistakes?
August 8, 2020
This a good primer for incoming law students to gain confidence in case reading. The practice questions at the end of each section are helpful in applying the techniques espoused in each chapter. The author’s responses to the practice questions are archived online for easy reference to compare your answers. While you cannot get immediate feedback, the author lists questions to ask yourself when evaluating your answers and thought process. There is also additional material (worksheets, dissents and full cases of the excepted cases in the book) archived online that supplements the material in the book.
April 12, 2020
Summary: If you're going to read this book I wouldn't recommend reading this book until you start your 1L year or until you're a few weeks away from going to law school. I decided to read this book about a year or so before I even go and as a result of the information in it, while useful, I would say only 15% or so of that information I can apply to anything I'm reading/studying/researching now (LSAT, research for work, legal theory/history/fiction reads).
So yeah this is a book that can help for law school (for like the first 1-3 weeks or so) and that's about it.
Pros:
1. The book utilizes a word, "EMPOWER" and each letter stands for a strategy you can utilize to study law. For example "E" stands for Energy, it's imperative to study law with enough "energy" because you're not just reading the law, you're "ENGAGING" with it in a sort of back and forth conversation.
2. The book has various exercises based around a particular court case so you can actually apply what you learn in each chapter.
Cons:
1. The book was.... I thought when someone said this book was dry they were overestimating it, or well most people that have never read a legal book or a Case, in general, say that after their first Case or book it's dry. So yeah I dismissed that assertion. Yeah...well....even by law book/legal theory/advice book standards this book was kinda dry but more so because it overexplained things and went on and on when it didn't have to.
2. I was hoping to get....something out of this book that would give me..I'm not going to say get an advantage going into law school. But more like something that would have info. I wouldn't be able to get/learn easy enough on my own type deal. But if I'm being honest, outside of some of what was mentioned for the letter "M" in "EMPOWER" I don't see how I wouldn't be able to learn most of this stuff within the first few weeks in Law School.
3. The book doesn't provide answers for the exercises...so it's kind of hard to know if you're legal reasoning is right/wrong when you answer each question.
Conclusion: So yeah sure this helped....my first week or two will be easier...but I mean law school is 2-3 years so like...in the grand scheme of things this book wasn't worth it. A book I read recently, "The Legal Analyst" was more helpful and insightful but this was ok.
So yeah this is a book that can help for law school (for like the first 1-3 weeks or so) and that's about it.
Pros:
1. The book utilizes a word, "EMPOWER" and each letter stands for a strategy you can utilize to study law. For example "E" stands for Energy, it's imperative to study law with enough "energy" because you're not just reading the law, you're "ENGAGING" with it in a sort of back and forth conversation.
2. The book has various exercises based around a particular court case so you can actually apply what you learn in each chapter.
Cons:
1. The book was.... I thought when someone said this book was dry they were overestimating it, or well most people that have never read a legal book or a Case, in general, say that after their first Case or book it's dry. So yeah I dismissed that assertion. Yeah...well....even by law book/legal theory/advice book standards this book was kinda dry but more so because it overexplained things and went on and on when it didn't have to.
2. I was hoping to get....something out of this book that would give me..I'm not going to say get an advantage going into law school. But more like something that would have info. I wouldn't be able to get/learn easy enough on my own type deal. But if I'm being honest, outside of some of what was mentioned for the letter "M" in "EMPOWER" I don't see how I wouldn't be able to learn most of this stuff within the first few weeks in Law School.
3. The book doesn't provide answers for the exercises...so it's kind of hard to know if you're legal reasoning is right/wrong when you answer each question.
Conclusion: So yeah sure this helped....my first week or two will be easier...but I mean law school is 2-3 years so like...in the grand scheme of things this book wasn't worth it. A book I read recently, "The Legal Analyst" was more helpful and insightful but this was ok.
June 23, 2017
The practice exercises are helpful for learning to think critically about what you're reading in the cases. Her simple, straightforward strategies and checklists in the appendixes have given me a greater confidence as I start school.
July 15, 2014
This book has been recommended by many law schools, in particular the one I was accepted too; so I decided to read it and it was definitely worth it. There are not only practical tips for becoming a better reader, but exercises and resources that you can use to better your reading skill for anyone who is a beginner to a more advanced legal reader. I read the library's copy, but I might have to consider purchasing for future use.
July 21, 2008
lots of good advice on how to read cases for school, cases for work and other legal material such as statutes and unedited cases.
November 30, 2015
Dry but useful.
Read
July 26, 2012Incredibly helpful for those entering law school.
March 21, 2015
I am going to post a Review on my website NOT on Goodreads because Goodreads is acting like Amazon an forcing recommendations on me and other hostile corporate manipulative behaviour.
September 8, 2016
A useful preliminary read for prospective law students. Much of the advice given would be of great profit to any and all student, quite frankly.
August 15, 2012
Great for lay persons and or future and new law students.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews