Reddit mentions: The best lawyer & judge biographies

Lots of great recommendations in this thread; I've added a few to my reading list. Here are my suggestions (copied from a previous thread):

• How to Win Friends and Influence People - Everyone with a mother should practice this.
  
• Tao Te Ching (S. Mitchell translation)
  
• Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy - I never cared about economics until after I was done with school, and didn't remember anything from university class. This helped explain a lot of common fallacies many people make.
  
• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets - As Taleb says in the beginning of the book, anyone from any profession could have written this book, but a financial background makes this much more interesting. Anyone interested in science and what we can learn from the world of past experience should read this. This led to the next book:
  
• How to Live: A Life of Montaigne - A biography of Montaigne, a great skeptic, always curious, interested in what it means to be human. I found I could relate a great deal with the man, as many others have in different ways. The dust-jacket description made it sound like a boring historical overview, but I think the book flowed pretty well and was always interesting.
  
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Anyone that ever creates a slideshow, or attempts to represent data visually should read this book. More than once. I'd say it changed my life.
  
  And, the following two are a look into the lives of two great men that lived in the 20th century; both offer many points worth emulating.
  
  
• Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
  
• The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (once available in full on PBS website, seems not to be the case now ...)

Thanks for the info! Gifts can be so challenging. I'm sure she'll appreciate whatever you get her and that you went through the trouble of trying to find a thoughtful gift!

​

One of these literary mugs would go great if you decide to do a coffee-themed gift!

​

Tickets to a concert of a band she likes?

​

Since she's studying psychology, she might get a kick of out this phrenology head bust. Especially if her end goal is to be a therapist or psychologist, she could ultimately put it in her office.

​

Since she likes learning about influential people throughout history, if she's a fan of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this book is super popular.

​

Being in college, a portable charger would come in handy if she doesn't already have one! A nice bag 1, 2 would last a long time, so she could even use it at the start of her career. Or an Instant Pot for a quicker way for her to cook her meals. I wish Instant Pot would have been around when I was in college!

​

Some other ideas:

If she lives in a dorm or apartment, she may like decorating with a wall tapestry (1, 2, 3, 4)

Ring with the coordinates of her school or hometown

Female empowerment necklace

​

> I'd be very surprised to hear that a justice has his or her mind completely made up from the outset of every single case. Some or most cases, maybe, yes.

This is because the Justices are necessarily generalists. Orin Kerr has a really fascinating interview about how the idea that a Justice can just decide his or her ideology can get them from point A to point B is pretty much an illusion in a vast majority of cases.

> Perhaps I am an optimist, but I imagine most of the justices do order their clerks to conduct a metric fuckton of research on the merits of the arguments of both the appellant and appellee.

Speaking as a former, non-SCOTUS clerk, I can tell you that the briefing of the parties matters a ton more than independent research by clerks. You'd never have enough time. And from a judicial economy sense, it's clear why: the parties (especially at that level) have likely turned over 99% of the rocks to make the best case on the appellate issue before the Court. You're so unlikely to discover something new.

And, from reports of clerks (also this one) delays in getting opinions have less to do with research and writing and more about consensus building. You'll almost always find that the briefs share a great deal with the briefing of some party (or amicus). Deviations occur where there's a negotiated middle ground.

Personally, I read for fun in my spare time and usually learn about other things (which inevitably I manage to relate back). I've also found that audiobooks are awesome for law school. I have to cook, I have to do laundry, I have to clean the house, walk to the grocery store, and all of those things can be done while listening to an audiobook. Some of the below were listened to, others were read traditionally.

That being said, this book on the Warren Court was "recommended" in Con Law and I found it short and revealing about a significant era in SCOTUS history.

I adored Sonia Sotomayor's autobiography, which was more about her youth and early career but felt like listening to a bad ass Aunt talk about her life choices when she was my age.

Gideon's Trumpet (Although if, era of the book be damned, if it described lawyers as "young men" one more time, I swear to god...)

Sisters in Law also felt like a nice preview of Con Law - a lot of the cases we read in Con Law were familiar to me as I'd read that before then.

Pop-crime books that I nevertheless got me thinking about law when I read them include In Cold Blood (which I listened to while in Evidence class and found myself being like - wait, why isn't this a 403 violation or hearsay? and then looking the law up to clarify the rule I hadn't quite started learning yet) and Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town.

I also highly recommend the podcasts Radiolab: More Perfect (spin off); the Radiolab episode The Buried Bodies Case; and the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class, many episodes of which are either explicitly about a court case (they have several on like, Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board, the cases about special education) or more related to lesser known policies that didn't really make it to Court (e.g., the Bracero program).

Edit: typo

Edit 2: The More Perfect episode, "The Political Thicket," which came out two weeks after I took my Con Law exam, was pretty much straight up the answer to question #3 on my exam.

Abstract:

Professor Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is one of the most influential thinkers in the world of public philosophy. Amongst many other philosophical texts, Goldstein is the author of The Mind-Body Problem, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction and Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. For many, Goldstein’s talent for bringing philosophy to life through her wit and beautiful storytelling is unapparelled. In the words of A. C. Grayling,

>“Like Plato… Goldstein has both literary and philosophical gifts of the highest order: the combination is superb.”

The list of Goldstein’s accomplishments is exhaustingly extensive; let us mention just five of many. Professor Goldstein was named a MacArthur Fellow (popularly known as the “genius award”) in 1996 and elected to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. In 2011, she was designated Free-thought Heroine by the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Humanist of the Year by The American Humanist Association, and in September of 2015, awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House. The reason cited?

>"For bringing philosophy into conversation with culture. In scholarship, Dr Goldstein has elucidated the ideas of Spinoza and Gödel, while in fiction, she deploys wit and drama to help us understand the great human conflict between thought and feeling."

_______

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/panpsycast-philosophy-podcast/id1141816572?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IUpXIJ1czUcbqKYjVsux5?si=dyHTigLVTVipZu6SNVtp-w

TuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/The-Panpsycast-Philosophy-Podcast-p969318/

Google Play (US and Canada): https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Isk2eawr7ew63mpskug5ruxd2iy

Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/cLun

Android: http://subscribeonandroid.com/thepanpsychist.com/panpsycast2?format=rss

RSS Feed: http://thepanpsycast.libsyn.com/rss

_______

Contact: www.twitter.com/thepanpsycast

Support and early-access: www.patreon.com/panpsycast

>To be fair, my interest in being less "automated" in my Stoic thoughts was inspired only recently after a discussion on this subreddit. My dive into skepticism has been a means to assess and challenge my beliefs in a different way, as the surviving Skeptic works delve more into epistemology than surviving Stoic works..... ..... ....Epictetus, when talking about evaluating impressions, mentions that we need to examine it by the tools at our disposal and chiefly the dichotomy of control. Skeptic tools fall in the former for me.

This is something that's been bothering me also when put into practice. I've been considering applying the Socratic line of questioning - haven't developed a full-fledged approach yet apart from an acronym CARPIQ (clarify, ques. assumptions, reasons, perspectives, implications, and question). But it seems cumbersome at the outset itself - I mean it's not going to be like second nature nor is it going to be easy implementing on a machine-like organ that produces thousands of impressions. Being preoccupied with a lot of things, this might take me some time to figure out.
You've given me an additional direction to explore. I'm grateful for that. I'll definitely make time to explore this.

>When I get the chance, I'd like to pick up Outlines of Pyrrhonism from Sextius Empiricus.

Interesting. Adding this to my list. Thanks!

>Oh! What book about him did you pick up?

How to Live, or a life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer, by Sarah Bakewell

You can grab the audiobook in Frame translation, the narration is quite nice.

I've done some research into the best translation and the consensus seems to be that Screech is the most "accessible and modern" http://www.amazon.com/Michel-Montaigne-Complete-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140446044/

Although the best book on Montaigne is http://www.amazon.com/How-Live-Montaigne-Question-Attempts/dp/1590514831 which I found thanks to Farnam Street and I would recommend reading it alongside the original.

>Seems like the difference between formula and ingredients would still protect a company's trade secret.

Well, yes and no. The thing about recipes for things like baked goods or soaps is that the lack of volatiles makes them difficult to analyze in a way that you could re-create them scratch.

However, fragrances, being comprised almost entirely of volatile materials, are much easier. Every perfumery lab with a GC/MS system keeps a library of chemical profiles of various perfumery materials so that they can filter out the noise.

This is a bit difficult to explain, but bear with me. If you find a very common material like linalool in a perfume, which occurs all over nature and is also made and used synthetically in quantities approaching the millions of tons, you won't necessarily know the source of its presence. It could come from bergamot oil, lemon oil, ho wood oil, lavender oil, geranium oil, or any number of other materials. So you have to look for other markers of EACH of those materials in order to take a guess as to where it might be coming from. It could be multiple materials, too, which can make it that much more difficult.

However, if you have an exact list of all of the ingredients, you KNOW where it came from. Guesswork gone. So now you just have to figure out the proportion, which has suddenly become much easier because you no longer have to worry about overlap. It would make the job of reverse engineering a fragrance that much easier. It's like repainting a masterpiece knowing the exact proportions of pigment used in each color.

BUT! You might say. But the copyright laws protect the expression of the art! But that's not an ironclad protection. There are fair use provisions to consider. How much borrowing is too much? You'd be talking about blazing entirely new trails in legal principle, and there might well be a lot of damage to the rightsholders in the process. The financial and legal ramifications could be catastrophically destructive to the fragrance industry as everyone raced to copy as much as they could before the courts began to correct the issue, which could take years.

The court system typically moves as a glacial pace, and is generally the last and most resistant barrier to major legal or socio-legal changes (gay marriage, marijuana, and desegregation all come to mind; if you're particularly interested, look up the book Fifty Eight Lonely Men, which details the desegregation process in the South after the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education). Unfortunately, this has to be taken into account from the outset, from a public policy standpoint, and forcing the declaration of full ingredient lists on a grand scale might well drive smaller perfume houses out of business.

The sharp-eyed may ask why I focus on smaller perfume houses. Larger manufacturers, Firmenich and Givaudan chief among them, hold patents on their so-called "captive molecules," which would largely protect them from this kind of damage. How could you possibly rip off a formula if you're not allowed to make the key molecules that make it what it is and the people who ARE allowed to make them won't sell them to you?

All in all, I realize that I've prattled on at length here, but it's a very complex minefield of doctrine and policy consideration. There is no simple answer, which is why we're still here.

In case you want descriptions or reviews, I've added Amazon links.

> The Happy Cook: 125 Recipes for Eating Every Day Like It's the Weekend by Daphne Oz

>Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

>Live by Night: A Novel by Dennis Lehane

>Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win -the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

>Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever

>War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel by James Rollins, Grant Blackwood

>Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik

>Downfall: A Brady Novel of Suspense by J. A. Jance

>Chaos: A Scarpetta Novel by Patricia Cornwell

>The Witch of Portobello: A Novel by Paulo Coelho

I read Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity a couple months ago. Spinoza is popularly thought of as a pantheist, yet his philosophy was instrumental to Freethinking.

An especially enjoyable book, I say, is The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan. Or you might enjoy his novel Contact, which is essentially a novelization of Varieties.

The philosophical school of existentialism deals with this—how do we continue to exist in the face of the absurdity of life? I highly recommend the book At the Existentialist Cafe for an engaging and assessable introduction to this area of thought. It’s a truly amazing book.

Over half of Rehnquist's clerks went to school outside of the T14. This was a rule of his and a deliberate effort to correct an imbalance he disliked.

http://www.amazon.com/In-Chambers-Justices-Constitutionalism-Democracy/dp/081393401X

Great book with plenty of wonderful stats for those curious about efforts to penetrate the illuminati status of the Supreme Court.

I didn't take BarBri before law school. I did fine. So I don't think it's necessary. (And I can't speak to whether it would be helpful.)

In the summer before I started law school, I met a law school professor. I asked him if he had any advice for law school.

He said to read 1L, by Scott Turow, which references another law school book: The Paper Chase, by John Osborne. Not because law school is really like that -- tension and pressure so thick it hangs in the air like a fog -- but because it will give you some idea -- albeit a dramatized one -- of how the Socratic method works in class.

His 2nd tip was: study more after class than before class. Most law school students are so freaked out about being called on in class that they spend way more time preparing for class, than they do studying the material you learned in class. He said to read all the cases and be prepared for class, but the point is to do well on the tests, so you need to learn the material. Spend more time preparing for the test than preparing for class.

His 3rd tip: Read what your professors have written. It will give you an idea of how your professor thinks, and what he thinks is important. And if you can somehow work it into class discussion -- or better yet, a test answer -- then the professor's ego probably can't help but be stroked a little bit.

Haven't read it personally yet (though it's on the list), but I've heard very good things about The Man to See about Edward Bennett Williams (legendary DC trial lawyer, founder of Williams & Connolly).

Echo the recommendation re: The Nine. It's obviously somewhat dated at this point, but gives good context for how the Court operates, how its changing composition/personalities affect its direction, etc.

Get Me Ellis Rubin, which happened to be on the shelf next to the study carrel in the library where I parked my ass for most of first year law. Hardly agreed with anything Ellis Rubin (for those he have not heard of him, a renowned and occasionally reviled Miami lawyer) said or claimed to have done in this book, but he thoroughly convinced me that even the worst of cases, the worst of clients can be helped and your creative application of the law to the facts you are dealt is a primary determinator of your abilities and success as a lawyer. Thank you, Ellis Rubin. You are ruthless prick, but thank you nonetheless.

Yes! I wish the interview was longer. I also just got a copy of [Notorious RBG] (https://www.amazon.com/Notorious-RBG-Times-Bader-Ginsburg/dp/0062415832/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) and her time in law school was so inspiring as well.

I would recommend The Autobiography of an Execution by David R Dow. It's an excellent read and deals specifically with the Texas Justice System in regards to capital punishment.

She is a total badass! If you need motivation, fitness or otherwise, check out Notorious RBG.

Scientists like Feynman and Oppenheimer ("father of the Atomic Bomb"), also native New Yorkers.

Also Alexander Hamilton (not native, but mostly associated with NYC). He's cool enough to have a hit Broadway show about his life. Although if we're getting political, what's better than FDR, the guy who bitch slapped the Nazis while fighting a whole other war across the world.

But, of people alive today, I'd say Ruth Bader Ginsberg -- by a wide margin the most badass member of the Supreme Court as evidenced by this book.

1L was pretty good. You'll find similarities with it and your first year, for sure.

On a related note, if you're a reader and love RBG, you should check out this book.

If you're interested in NM politics and history, I'd also recommend "Cowboy In The Roundhouse" by former governor Bruce King.

Michael Morchower was always the go to Defense Attorney when rich people did it. That dude's even wrote a book about himself. https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mike-Richmonds-Legendary-Morchower/dp/1482049767

​

Check out this book if you're a reader. You might come out of it with a new appreciation for what they do.

https://www.amazon.com/Indefensible-Lawyers-Journey-Inferno-American/dp/031615623X

The Pritzkers are a Mafia family gone "legit". Abe Pritzker got the grub stake for the family fortune working for Al Capone and Big Tuna Accardo and the Chicago "Outfit".


You want to read an eye opening book. Check out Super Mob by Gus Russo all about Mob fixer Sidney Korshak and how the Mob has inserted itself into all of America's important institutions from Politics to Hollywood. The Pritzkers figure prominently. They were big Obama backers as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Supermob-Korshak-Criminal-Associates-Americas/dp/B001FA23R2

If you haven't read Notorious RBG, I highly recommend it.

I just started this. I'm kind of in love.

If you like that, you should buy the book

You may be interested in this. I read it for a criminal justice class this past semester and it spells out in clear detail exactly how a lot of this ridiculous bullshit happens. At one point, a guy goes to jail for walking his friend's unlicensed dogs because of a series of simple misunderstandings and a judge who was having a bad day.

she actually has a biography that's a New York Times bestseller by that name

https://www.amazon.com/How-Live-Montaigne-Question-Attempts/dp/1590514831

This is the book

https://www.amazon.com/Indefensible-Missing-Steven-Halbach-Murderer/dp/0786041145/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=theopprep-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=2883c6e1a5115c6caaeef94aecdcdb80&creativeASIN=0786041145

How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Questions and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, by Sarah Bakewell.

Daniel C. Lavery, Author of memoir, All the Difference: http://www.amazon.com/All-Difference-Daniel-C-Lavery/dp/1482676532/ has a poem on his website: http://www.danielclavery.com

They already stole that for her biography.

Firefighters: Their Lives in Their Own Words

Highly recommend the book Indefensible by David Feige for those interested in these issues. Not a flawless book but brings up many important issues in a very accessible way. http://www.amazon.com/Indefensible-Lawyers-Journey-Inferno-American/dp/031615623X

The author is also chairman of a fund that helps poor defendants make bail. Which might not sound like a big deal, but it is something that allows poor defendants one of the main advantages of wealthier defendants in being able to fight their cases from a position of freedom rather than from a jail cell. The inability to make bail influences many, many people in the decision to take plea deals rather than fight charges.
http://davidfeige.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-bronx-freedom-fund-six-months-in.html

"Apology for Raymond Sebond" and "Of Experience" are his most well-known.

Think of Montaigne as a proto-blogger. There's no overarching theme, really, other than he's trying to understand the world and himself. He comes from an earlier Humanist tradition that is inductive and bottom-up as opposed to deductive and top-down. He's not there to present an argument as a lawyer would; he's there to explore an idea wherever it takes him. (For more on the difference between Montaigne's essays and modern essays, this post is essential: http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html) I disagree with the other response here: there's no reason not to skip around and read whatever interests you.

If you still need some guidance, though, Sarah Bakewell's How To Live is helpful: http://www.amazon.com/How-Live-Montaigne-Question-Attempts/dp/1590514831

The chapters are organized thematically, so there's no need to read that one straight through either. I think she has a tendency to get bogged down into too many details, so feel free to skim.