Books for Lawyers: Thirty Must Reads Recommended at the ABA Journal

Stephanie Francis Ward at the ABA Journal headlines that 30 Lawyers Pick 30 Books Every Lawyer Should Read.

We certainly agree with some, but not all of the selections. Surely any of the books listed have potential value to particular readers, although book selection is largely a matter of personal taste. Each of us would clearly come up with a different list of 30 books.

I definitely do miss from the ABA Journal list:

Herbert Packer, The Limits of the Criminal Sanction

Packer's brilliant discussion of the underlying values that guide models of criminal process could in principle be applied equally to law and politics in general, where there is a constant battle between (simplistic) legal and political fundamentalism and (the more complex) reality, something we currently see similarly in the alleged "fundamentalist" national budget crisis, which, according to the blog of Robert Reich at the Christian Science Monitor, is "in reality" a jobs and growth crisis.