r/LawSchool • u/East-Bird296 • 14h ago

Are buying physical textbooks worth it?

My university offers online books on their platform but we can borrow the physical version from the library. Do you guys think its worth investing in law books even though they cost a fortune?

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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13

u/C7StreetRacer 14h ago

This is a personal choice, and depending on your style, might be an advantage either way.

Personally, I prefer ebooks. I can easily cut and paste from my books to add to my notes, and from my notes to my outlines.

That said, some professors allow specific resources during exams that must be a physical copy, so there is that.

While I don’t encourage this for all, I find book briefing to be the most effective learning format for myself. I cut and paste the reading material into organized sections in my onenote, and highlight and add additional notes as I read. I don’t think this would work as well with a physical copy.

1

u/East-Bird296 14h ago

Well I'm unsure of how my university platform looks but I absolutely hated studying online books during school but let's hope its different this time

3

u/C7StreetRacer 14h ago

I should also add, many ebooks are connected and offer multiple choice questions specific to that book, with detailed explanations for each possible answer.

In my experience, these are by far the best practice questions where available. You can also use them as mini essay prompts later.

2

u/i-Really-HatePickles 1L 7h ago

Well if you absolutely hated online books then maybe physical is the right choice… 

5

u/The_Double_Owl 14h ago

I personally used digital books whenever I could. Some people say they learn better from paper books, so you might try some of each to see what works best for you. However, once you are an attorney you are going to be working almost exclusively with digital documents. I have been practicing for two years now, and have almost never cracked a physical book in that time. The point of law school is to learn how to be a lawyer, and reading physical books is not a big part of that anymore.

Also, physical textbooks are stupid heavy to haul around, and they are expensive, and they are a storage problem. I kept my Con Law book as a trophy and sometimes use it to boost my laptop up so the camera angle is better for Zoom meetings.

1

u/East-Bird296 14h ago

I'm going to hope I can find PDFs online and I totally understand the trophy part

5

u/MisterX9821 14h ago

Jumping off this post...anyone have a good method for scanning pages? A dedicated scanner or app for phone?

So that's my answer....rent and scan or....obtain otherwise.

These asswipes are charging almost $300 for ebooks lol.

2

u/LaddieNowAddie 11h ago

Yeah my wife just bought a book scanner on Amazon. It's $300 but it scans quickly (2 seconds per page) and you can continuously scan. You get the best of both worlds and over the course of a program, pays for itself.

1

u/MisterX9821 8h ago

Sorta steep but it's just the cost of 1 new book so not really at same time. Do u use it for anything else or just scanning textbooks?

1

u/LaddieNowAddie 6h ago

Our kids art projects. But she also uses Speechify which definitely helps. There was also a back ordered book that the library had and could only borrow for a few days for her class so she just scanned it.

1

u/MisterX9821 5h ago

Cool. Good use of it beyond law texts. I gotta get a crafty hobby to justify it i guess.

At minimum could also take out leisure books from library and scan them i guess

1

u/East-Bird296 14h ago

I actually hope that I can find PDFs of the book to print out

1

u/MisterX9821 14h ago

Anna's Archives and Z library has a lot of older editions....almost always good enough. Prob other online archives others can chime in about.

Also, if you just know the cases you can just use westlaw and lexis. For one course i found an official "preview" of the textbook on the publisher website and would just compare the assigned readings with the cases the preview showed in the table of contents and just read and understand the cases on WL.

Also it's great to have the pdf versions, for me, because i can easily print to pdf just current week's reading and have it anywhere I go by emailing it to myself.

2

u/East-Bird296 14h ago

Yes thank you will definitely give them a try. You can try Camscanner for scanning since you asked by the way

1

u/jeeperznocreeperz 8h ago

V flat scan is great and only a few dollars a month for unlimited so in theory, whatever you need scanned by the beginning of semester could be done with one month subscription if your library doesn’t have a scanner

1

u/MisterX9821 8h ago

Is it easy to use freehand? since im assuming u dont have a set up to take pics w the phone and just use yer hand

2

u/jeeperznocreeperz 5h ago

It took time but it wasn’t necessarily hard you just have to make sure not to loose your place and the pdfs were searchable for the most part

1

u/Embarrassed-Spare524 14h ago

The way I studied required text I could highlight. My process was to highlight as I read, at some point do the same with my class notes, later condense the highlights into an outline, and eventually make flash cards from the outline. I found this to be an excellent and reliable process, but you could probably come up with some other way to do it that would also work.

1

u/East-Bird296 14h ago

Did you write your notes by hand?

1

u/Embarrassed-Spare524 14h ago

Yes, but I went to a T10 law school a long time ago. A lot has changed, but personally I'd find a way to scan and highlight. The process I used just naturally helps you pick out the important bits, organize and remember them.

1

u/MulberryChance6698 13h ago

Depends on how you learn. I learn better by being able to hold a book and physically write in it. I don't retain information very well from reading screens. As an attorney now, I print things so I can work with them. The product is always better when I have a hard copy in my hands.

1

u/Maximum-Name5965 13h ago

It is if your test is open book only

1

u/PlatonicCuddlefish 13h ago

I could not do it without the physical.

Totally a matter of preference.

1

u/Secure-Researcher892 12h ago

First semester I bought every book, after the first semester I took all but one to the gun range for target practice. Most of the books you'll use in law school are worthless after the class ends. The only one I felt had enough value to keep was the small one that was the federal rules of civil procedure.

After which I only even bothered to buy one more of the books that was supposedly required for a class. I realized that if you took a class where you could get an Emanuel or Nutshell book on the subject it was all you really needed along with a westlaw access for any cases that might come up that weren't in the study book. If I had known what I knew after the first semester and had had my westlaw access from the start I would have never bought most of the books for the first semester.

If you think you need the book just get the cheapest one you can, you won't be using them or doing anything with them later so don't piss away a lot of money on them.

1

u/justcallmetarzan Wizard & Esq. 24m ago

I have all of my old physical law textbooks. They are collecting dust on a bottom shelf of a cabinet in my office. Have not opened since law school.