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The Law School Confidential: A Complete Guide to the Law School Experience, By Students, For Students has been called “a must for anyone attending or thinking about law school” by The Houston Lawyer, and is one book that can be found in the bookshelf of every law student.

Law School Confidential is considered the “little black book” of law schools around the United States. Rather than being a simple guide book with study and exam prep tips, this book aims to be a complete guide to the entire law school experience. It walks the reader through what it feels like to be inside a law school – surviving the first year and the 1L exams, the summer law internship, the screening interviews come graduation. The author frequently uses the experiences of former law students to make its points clear, and at that it is quite effective.

The book begins with a string of lengthy chapters on orienting the reader with the process of getting inside a law school. This “beginner’s guide” is exhaustive and well written, and does a good job of introducing law school and its lifestyle to the reader. However, one feels that more could be devoted to how to actually pick which school to apply for.

Some very useful information comes in the form of the grading curves in each individual school, and which school has pass fail grading available as an option. For most first year students, this information can be vital; the first year is easily the toughest.

The book stresses the fact that the best, and the most useful tips and advice often come from fellow students and not professors. In most schools, the 2L and the 3L students are the go to guys – the professors are often either too busy to entertain individual students, or are not open enough in sharing information.

The strongest point of the book, and one that has made it so popular among most law students is its no nonsense, conversational tone. Most law books tend to throw legal mumbo jumbo at their readers – a tradition among lawyers themselves – but this book keeps the verbose to a minimum, and focuses on delivering frank information that can be actually useful to those thinking of, or attending legal school.

Where this book fails is that it can be too basic sometimes, coming across as preachy. Some of the study tips are downright basic – things which most people have picked up in their undergrad years itself. Moreover, the book tries to push certain tactics which may not be applicable to everyone.

Nonetheless, as the Houston Lawyer says, this book is definitely a must for anyone either thinking of becoming a lawyer. As the New York Law Journal put it, this is quite a “useful, worthwhile book”.