textbooks, law
Jul. 19th, 2012 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lloll4Looking up textbook lists on school website is like pulling teeth. Or that the joke's on me and it's someplace really, really obvious, so obvious that I didn't even think about checking it. Gah.
Never mind, will drop by library and check out the course reserve shelves, where helpful librarians have spare copies of textbooks for 2-hr use. 's a good way to look through alternative textbooks (where there are alternative textbooks) and decide which one is better(?) and whether to buy. My guess is that like most textbooks on the Olde and Most Noble practice of the Law, there's one authored by a well-known scholar which continues to carry the name of that dead (usually) white (usually) guy even after it has been through so many editions and revisions that it scarcely resembles the book that the original guy wrote. This practice, by the way, seemed so alien to me at first (still does, a bit) but I guess it's a way to ensure continuity. Or something.
For record's sake my textbooks in the first year of school were:
1) Contract law: Cheshire, Fifoot & Furmstom's Law of Contracts, 15th edition. Inexplicably for a book published by OUP - not to mention a textbook in its 15th incarnation - it has lots of typos. Not too bad in some respects, but really more of a reference book that you'd go to for extra illumination after reading the cases first. Ok, that was always my mistake: reading the textbook first. >_> We did have the option of getting Chen-Wishart's Contract Law, 3rd ed or Anson’s Law of Contract (see what I mean about textbooks being named after the original author?) which I heard are also not too bad but I got mine secondhand and it was the cheapest.
There were also casebooks which are basically short write-ups, summaries and extracts of cases - useful for a quick reference or if you're pressed for time but casebooks, I've found, can really skew your perception of a case based on what is edited. Best to get the actual cases and do your own editing/reading. Always supposing you don't have a life, of course.
Also suggested were reference texts like E. Peel's Treitel on Contract, 12th ed and oddly enough, Chitty on Contracts was never suggested even though it's super helpful. I think it's maybe because the library appears to have only one copy of the most current edition of Chitty (it's on the course reserve shelf)? The library copy is really ratty, but that's inevitable considering how many people use it.
For the Sale of Goods, we used Atiyah's Sale of Goods, 12th ed.
Reminder to self: check other textbooks too (even if they're not on reading list) if stumped.
2) Criminal law: Required text was Criminal Law in Singapore and Malaysia by Yeo, Morgan and Chan. I think a new edition just came out. Also casebook Fundamental Principles of Criminal Law by Chan, Jor and Ramraj. There's a dearth of books on criminal law in Singapore. A lot of self-congratulatory things on how criminal law is codified, not common law, and how it contributed to low crime rates, etc, etc, and a longstanding, ineffectual debate on the (de)criminalisation of homosexuality. OT: Most recent thing of interest was a proposed change to the mandatory death penalty in certain murder or drug smuggling cases.
3) Legal interpretation: Case analysis and statutory interpretation, 2nd ed by Beckman, Coleman and Lee. Well, 'legal interpretation' was the course title - the book has summaries and explanations about interpretating statutes and cases; it's really more like a preliminary text for the law student so you'd get a better idea of how persnickety law is. Like, what's this about using/not using outside material to interpret the law when there are points of ambiguity? It sounds totally commonsensical that you should, right? But apparently there were all kinds of feelings and angst about it, until they finally concluded something like, yeah, they could. This book is adorable for the dedication, which reads:
For ... Pearl (Joel's t'hy'la.)
4) Skills for lawyers: Only the most lousiest, not-for-value textbook I have bought. It's $80 for a 200-page book, and if I weren't such an upstanding citizen I'd have photocopied the whole book and which, by the way, we didn't use more than a quarter of. It contains sections on how to write briefs, etc, which can be found in many, many, cheaper textbooks. Grrr. Definitely a book I'm getting rid of to gullible first-years.
4) Constitutional and administrative law: Administrative law, 6th ed, Leyland and Anthony; Constitutional law in Malaysia and Singapore, 3rd ed, Tan and Thio. Plus lots of references and extra reading materials from the prof.
5) Walter Woon on Company Law, 3rd ed. It's pretty nice, mostly systematic but also, must consult other references in tandem. This is not helped by the fact, however, that Singapore's company law varies in parts from UK's, which is what most textbooks in the library are focused on. We also had Partnership Law in Singapore, by Yeo Hwee Ying, small book, a quick (if dry) read. My casebook was Sealy's Cases and Materials in Company Law, 9th ed. Also suggested was Hicks & Goo, Cases and Materials on Company Law, but both are about the same.
5) Street on Torts, 12th ed. Not bad, but again needs other reference texts (a fact I discovered too late).
All these books (exccept two) are each the size of a (large) brick and also work well as doorstops or as footrests, or as imprompto weights if you need to do some exercise while studying. Post-it notes essential, especially if like me, you hate highlighters.
Never mind, will drop by library and check out the course reserve shelves, where helpful librarians have spare copies of textbooks for 2-hr use. 's a good way to look through alternative textbooks (where there are alternative textbooks) and decide which one is better(?) and whether to buy. My guess is that like most textbooks on the Olde and Most Noble practice of the Law, there's one authored by a well-known scholar which continues to carry the name of that dead (usually) white (usually) guy even after it has been through so many editions and revisions that it scarcely resembles the book that the original guy wrote. This practice, by the way, seemed so alien to me at first (still does, a bit) but I guess it's a way to ensure continuity. Or something.
For record's sake my textbooks in the first year of school were:
1) Contract law: Cheshire, Fifoot & Furmstom's Law of Contracts, 15th edition. Inexplicably for a book published by OUP - not to mention a textbook in its 15th incarnation - it has lots of typos. Not too bad in some respects, but really more of a reference book that you'd go to for extra illumination after reading the cases first. Ok, that was always my mistake: reading the textbook first. >_> We did have the option of getting Chen-Wishart's Contract Law, 3rd ed or Anson’s Law of Contract (see what I mean about textbooks being named after the original author?) which I heard are also not too bad but I got mine secondhand and it was the cheapest.
There were also casebooks which are basically short write-ups, summaries and extracts of cases - useful for a quick reference or if you're pressed for time but casebooks, I've found, can really skew your perception of a case based on what is edited. Best to get the actual cases and do your own editing/reading. Always supposing you don't have a life, of course.
Also suggested were reference texts like E. Peel's Treitel on Contract, 12th ed and oddly enough, Chitty on Contracts was never suggested even though it's super helpful. I think it's maybe because the library appears to have only one copy of the most current edition of Chitty (it's on the course reserve shelf)? The library copy is really ratty, but that's inevitable considering how many people use it.
For the Sale of Goods, we used Atiyah's Sale of Goods, 12th ed.
Reminder to self: check other textbooks too (even if they're not on reading list) if stumped.
2) Criminal law: Required text was Criminal Law in Singapore and Malaysia by Yeo, Morgan and Chan. I think a new edition just came out. Also casebook Fundamental Principles of Criminal Law by Chan, Jor and Ramraj. There's a dearth of books on criminal law in Singapore. A lot of self-congratulatory things on how criminal law is codified, not common law, and how it contributed to low crime rates, etc, etc, and a longstanding, ineffectual debate on the (de)criminalisation of homosexuality. OT: Most recent thing of interest was a proposed change to the mandatory death penalty in certain murder or drug smuggling cases.
3) Legal interpretation: Case analysis and statutory interpretation, 2nd ed by Beckman, Coleman and Lee. Well, 'legal interpretation' was the course title - the book has summaries and explanations about interpretating statutes and cases; it's really more like a preliminary text for the law student so you'd get a better idea of how persnickety law is. Like, what's this about using/not using outside material to interpret the law when there are points of ambiguity? It sounds totally commonsensical that you should, right? But apparently there were all kinds of feelings and angst about it, until they finally concluded something like, yeah, they could. This book is adorable for the dedication, which reads:
For ... Pearl (Joel's t'hy'la.)
4) Skills for lawyers: Only the most lousiest, not-for-value textbook I have bought. It's $80 for a 200-page book, and if I weren't such an upstanding citizen I'd have photocopied the whole book and which, by the way, we didn't use more than a quarter of. It contains sections on how to write briefs, etc, which can be found in many, many, cheaper textbooks. Grrr. Definitely a book I'm getting rid of to gullible first-years.
4) Constitutional and administrative law: Administrative law, 6th ed, Leyland and Anthony; Constitutional law in Malaysia and Singapore, 3rd ed, Tan and Thio. Plus lots of references and extra reading materials from the prof.
5) Walter Woon on Company Law, 3rd ed. It's pretty nice, mostly systematic but also, must consult other references in tandem. This is not helped by the fact, however, that Singapore's company law varies in parts from UK's, which is what most textbooks in the library are focused on. We also had Partnership Law in Singapore, by Yeo Hwee Ying, small book, a quick (if dry) read. My casebook was Sealy's Cases and Materials in Company Law, 9th ed. Also suggested was Hicks & Goo, Cases and Materials on Company Law, but both are about the same.
5) Street on Torts, 12th ed. Not bad, but again needs other reference texts (a fact I discovered too late).
All these books (exccept two) are each the size of a (large) brick and also work well as doorstops or as footrests, or as imprompto weights if you need to do some exercise while studying. Post-it notes essential, especially if like me, you hate highlighters.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-19 06:57 am (UTC)That's why Chitty is by far the best contract book and the one actually used inoffices.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-19 03:22 pm (UTC)Yup, that's what I thought as well, having seen Chitty quoted in some documents while I was in one of my old jobs. That's why I was puzzled by its exclusion from the prof's list of recommended references.
ETA: Treitel creating contract as this big theoretical mountain of which he was the master and only he knew the ways up and across, and not trying to tie it into general law at all.
That, I think, was why my prof was so impressed with him. Luckily the prof in the second term (a different person) had no opinions on him so I was spared the sight of my classmates carrying Treitel around as though it contained the secrets to contract law.