What are the different types of law book?

(Be warned. A lot of the links on this post may rot quickly.)

There's a lot of reading in Law. Much is done online these days and indeed the Open University now uses a subscription to Law Trove rather than bulk buying physical copies of core textbooks then sending them out to students. (I am not sure what the policies are for other subjects.) So what are the differences between the books?

Statute books

Although the OU doesn't use these, instead relying on online databases, they are some of the best known law books out there. A statute book contains the current legislation in an area of law, primarily the statutes as currently in force but sometimes also other key texts such as international treaties. By far the best known are Blackstone's Statutes. These books are often used in physical seminars, allowing students to access and discuss the current legislation immediately.

However, be warned that these books date very quickly and are updated at an incredible speed. At one stage Blackstone's issued new volumes for specific academic years, though lately they've gone back to numbering each edition instead. The numbers can range wildly - at the time of writing this post Blackstone's Statutes on Medical Law is on its eleventh edition whilst Blackstone's Statutes on Contract, Tort & Restitution and Blackstone's EU Treaties & Legislation are both on their thirty-sixth editions. (And I will not be surprised if those numbers have increased by the time you read this, but I'm not going to be perpetually updating this post.)

Because of this high turnover buying older editions second hand can be a mixed blessing. The prices often plummet quickly. However, some second hand booksellers won't even touch them and older editions won't always have the current law as amended in them.

Case books

A case book is primarily built around the texts of key judgments in an area of law, often accompanied by commentary. Currently, there's one of these used as the core text for an OU module, Poole's Casebook on Contract Law.

Again these are books that are often updated, though not as rapidly as statute books. I used the 16th edition of Poole which was still going three years after publication.

Textbooks

This is a relatively general term for the bulk of the core books in use. Each textbook provides a general overview of an area of law. Again these are frequently updated. In my time with the OU textbooks have ranged from second editions (e.g. Lamont's Family Law) to sixteenth editions (e.g. Smith & Wood's Employment Law).

Note also that many of the longer running textbooks have had multiple authors over the years and in some cases the original author's names are preserved in the title (e.g. Pearce & Stevens' Trusts and Equitable Obligations which is now by Barr and Picton) even though it has been a good number of years and editions since they last contributed themselves.

Dictionaries

There's a lot of specialist terminology in Law and a good legal dictionary is invaluable. I use A Dictionary of Law which, for reasons known to them, has the slightly different title "Oxford Dictionary of Law" on the cover and spine. Now in its tenth edition, it's also available online. The OU is one of many institutions with a subscription to the Oxford Reference website where students can access the contents. Other Law dictionaries are also available.

There are also dictionaries for many other subjects and these can prove useful for specific modules or even specific assignments. For instance A Dictionary of Business and Management may help students studying Business Law.

Exam help books

There are a number of these around but as all of my degree so far is assessed by coursework it's hard to comment on these.

Popular guides to Law

There are a number of guides to particular areas of law on the mass market. These books are primarily aimed at the public and are not especially academic. Whilst they can provide a general introduction to a specific subject, it is best to avoid referencing them.

Other books

Various other books of use might come up, whether histories, polemics, philosophical texts, biographies and others. Invariably these are a wide range and it's not possible to do them justice here. Unlike many of the other books discussed in this post, these don't tend to go through so many editions and so have a longer shelf life; some of them are also more likely to be found in high street bookshops. Two from my own shelf that stand out are The Rule of Law by Lord Bingham of Cornhill and Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel. And of course there are many, many others.

(All photographs my own.)