Customer Reviews

American Legal Systems: A Resource and Reference Guide

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is by far the most concise yet informative and enlightening book on U.S. law I have seen so far.

While most other book require the reader to work through numerous cases, huge loads of legislative materials, or just endless prose, Professor Fine succinctly outlines the most relevant basic principles, legal institutions, and practical aspects of U.S. law. Whenever possible (which is almost always the case), she summarizes the information in charts, making it easy to understand and memorize without going through the ordeal of filtering little pertinent knowledge out of a vast continuous text. The books also takes account of the needs of everyday legal practice by focusing in large parts on procedural law.

I wish I knew about this book earlier. It would have saved me countless hours and would have made access to the U.S. legal system and to its practical application considerably easier.

For the purposes of foreign students, particularly those trained in a civil law jurisdiction and interested in gaining a first understanding or in filling their knowledge gaps of U.S. law, Professor Fine's book is truly unmatched by all other books I know.

If not for my enormous gratitude, I might be angry at Toni Fine for writing American Legal Systems. She has written a book anyone who has taught during law school orientation could and would -- given an enormous amount of time, patience, and intelligence - write. I wish I had. But at least now I can exploit Professor Fine's efforts.

Before each school year's orientation, I have a plan. I start digging through the previous year's notebooks and files, hoping to bring some order to the photocopies and notes I use to introduce new law students to American court systems, common law analysis, the roles of the lawyer, and basic legal skills. As anyone who teaches first-year knows, all this information is essential to the effective assimilation of the first-year curriculum. Yet we provide our students with, at best, a few lectures brushing on these topics before dropping them into the depths of case analysis. At least, however, we give them these few lectures and the handouts we have spent our careers cobbling together. The problem is that there is so much, and anyone who has spent years studying and practicing law knows that all this doctrine is so fundamental to thinking like a lawyer that describing it is almost as difficult as describing how we walk or breathe.

Professor Fine has done exactly that: she has put together in slightly more than one hundred pages a thorough, clear, and intelligent account of the fundamentals of the way we lawyers walk and breathe. Nothing in this book is unfamiliar - it sets forth exactly what I want and expect every new law student to know as soon as possible about American legal institutions and the interrelationships between those institutions and legal authorities. Moreover, it covers these basics without degenerating into cliché or cant. Professor Fine has spent the time and effort to give a thorough and honest account of what novices to the American legal system need to know.

The truly impressive quality of the book, however, is that it gives this! account in a manner both readable enough to serve as an introduction during orientation and also thorough enough to be a reliable resource through the early years of a lawyer's practice. Certainly I know I would have wanted something like this book to turn to when I was struggling during my first weeks of law school with the basics of stare decisis, statutory analysis, and what all this stuff had to do with being a lawyer. Or when, as a first-year associate, I was sent off to "draft a motion," not having the faintest idea what a "motion" was, much less that what I was actually supposed to do was draft a memorandum of law in support of a motion.

Most importantly for my purposes, since I began teaching I have wanted a book like American Legal Systems to give to my first-year and international students. I always thought I would have to write it. Now all I have to do is have the university's book store order it. While I will not enjoy the benefits of having produced this invaluable resource, I will have the benefit of a few more free days every August.

This book is a must-read for anyone desiring a quick, painless, yet comprehensive discussion of the American Legal System. It is ideal both for the entering law school student, and also for the general reader who is looking to learn about how the system really works. The fact that it was so easy to understand and to read -- when most law texts read like mud -- made it a perfect companion for me through law school.

If you are coming from a civil law country and want to learn more about the common law system, this book is just perfect for you. I highly recommend it to foreign trained lawyers attending an LL.M. program at an American law school. If you are planning to start your studies this fall, buy and read it this summer and enjoy the headstart and lean back in your first classes.

I like Professor Fine's book not only because it is so eloquently written (reader-friendly - how exceptional in the field of law!), but also for its clarity and conciseness. Especially the numerous charts are extremely useful and show you on one page what other books try to explain to you on 20 pages.

In short, Professor Fine's book will be your loyal companion through your LL.M. year.

Professor Fine's book is an exciting work offering the inquisitive mind a new look at the fundamentals of the American legal system. It includes a lot of contemporary information on the American legal system. The book has helped me to organize my previous knowledge of the common law system while enriching it tremendously. Judging from personal experience, I consider the book's contents highly beneficial material for anyone who wishes to get a closer look at the legal system of the United States.

The book has been written very clearly for both foreign students and foreign lawyers, and that is its great value. In fact, the concentration on the main concepts of the legal system and its operation has been successfully conveyed by Professor Fine to both types of readers, practicing lawyers from countries with Civil Law system and law students. Professor Fine in her book effectively guides lawyers trained in Civil Law countries to the core of the concept of precedent and leading them to the special tools for answers to issues they encounter in their legal experience with the American Law. There is no doubt that foreign practicing lawyers would value this book very highly, because it aims to increase their own knowledge and skills that are essential in working with a multitude of the American Law aspects. Those attorneys engaged in law internationally would find it a helpful source of information on civil litigation, stages of court process and the variety of legal documents. Charts, which have been included in the book, further simplify the contents, completing the picture for a clearer understanding. Because of its concise nature, the book would be a uniquely important tool for foreign law students in their study of the Common Law system. Its presentation is by far more useful and informative than the usually huge volumes of legal literature.

I wish all books for law students would be written in a similar comprehensive legal language. Thinking back to my student life and teaching experience, I remember a mountain of rather boring and complicated materials that students had to study in relatively short periods. Professor Fine's book, while not a textbook, would be a welcome break from the usual and customary legal guides. Professor Fine did a great job in her book. Written and published in the period of the globalization of a legal profession, it provides foreign attorneys with an opportunity to improve the services they offer to clients whose interests are connected with the American Laws.

BOOK COMMENTS

American Legal System: Most Valuable Navigator of American Law for Foreign Lawyers Liu Junhai "American Legal System: A Resource and Reference Guide", written by Prof. Toni M. Fine, is one of the most practical and concise guidebook for American and foreign lawyers, especially those civil law trained lawyers, who want to gain a clear picture of American legal system within short time. Prof. Fine finished this book not only on the basis of many years of teaching American legal system at prestigious NYU School of Law, but also on the basis of her over ten years of productive academic research in this field. As a Chinese lawyer, I personally have benefited greatly from reading this book. Therefore, I'd like to encourage other foreign lawyers to share the informative knowledge presented in this book.

It is true that you can find innumerable books on American legal system either in bookstores or libraries. However, most of the legal works focus on specific or even very narrow areas of law, so as to satisfy academic exploration requirements. And most commonly used approach for foreign lawyers to learn American legal system is to start from very detailed yet specific areas of law. Therefore, it is natural for readers of this sort of books take it for granted that, they have known American legal system. In fact, what they have learned is only a part of American legal system, not the American legal system as a whole. Almost every body knows exactly the story of Indian blind men, who touched deferent parts of the same elephant, and mistook elephant either as a wall, or as a big fan, etc. To avoid the stupid mistakes made by these poor blind men, Prof. Fine just worked out a very clear picture of American legal system in a condensed form. After reading this book, I found the orientation of American law without difficulties, and got very familiar with basic concepts of American jurisprudence, case law, statutes and legislative history, administrative and other executive law, civil litigation, appellate court review, basic legal citation form, preparation of interoffice memorandums, memorandums of law, and preparation of appellate briefs. In a sense, I'd like to call this book a navigator in the ocean of American law. Before I read this book, I had found no such sort of navigator.

In order to enable readers operate and use the navigator easily and pleasantly, Prof. Fine tried her best in developing this book in a coherent, yet active and enabling way. The designation of the hierarchy of the whole structure of this book, including the headlines and sub-headlines, is very clear, concise and logical. The author also tends to guide the readers have the sight seeing from farther too nearer. For instance, the author introduced the basic concepts of stare decisis, court hierarchy, jurisdiction, dual court system, primary versus secondary authority at the very beginning of this book, and developed them further in details when readers proceed on exploring. Reading this book, is just like exploring a well-designed building group. To keep readers excited instead of tired while reading, the author used over sixty live and narrative charts, and avoided boring legal language. Therefore, almost each and every foreign lawyer or business people with basic English language skills could understand this book very well.

When I introduced this book to my colleagues in China, almost all of them think it necessary to translate this book into Chinese, and publish it in Chinese, so as to make it available to hundreds of thousands Chinese law students, lawyers, legal scholars, business people and general public, who have strong interest in American law. I could not imagine that Chinese students do not have this book as an indispensable refrence book if they want to study American law in the future. Although this book can not replace other American law books in specific areas of law, other books could be understood better and deeper with the assistance of this book as a navigator. I believe it is also true with the counterparts in other countries, especially the civil law countries. Of course, American law school students and business school students having interest in studding American law are also the suitable beneficiaries of this book. It is no wonder why this book has been printed for three times sine it was published in 1997. I sincerely hope and believe this book will be published in more foreign languages, and enable more foreign lawyers use this navigator in skillful and experienced way when they explore American law for either academic purpose or business purpose.

(The reviewer is Arbitrator, Beijing Arbitration Commission; Associate professor & Deputy Director, Department of Business Law & Economic Law, Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Email: junhai@public.east.cn.net; liujunhai_2000@yahoo.com)

I have recently finished a law course where we used Ms. Fines book. This is one of my first law courses and this book helped me to understand proceedure better than any other resource I used. I highly recommend this book to anyone in need of guidence to the law.

As a foreign train lawyer from a civil law country, American Legal Systems is extremely helpful in getting the basic foundation for understanding the American system and learn how to research and write legal memos. When I started law school classes, there were many references made in class which assumed we knew certain terms. As a foreigner, these assumptions of certain knowledge was very frustrating. Ms. Fine's book filled in many of the gaps and now I have more peace of mind.

I like the schematic structure of American Legal Systems: A Resource and Reference guide. Once I delved into it, I really appreciated the clear and concise organization of the content as well as the presentation in tables and outlines.

As a novice reader in common law, I found the dual outline approach - from general to particular - very interesting: the concepts are first introduced, anchored and defined; thereafter, further developed into an enabling level of details.

Reference books generally do not explain the hierarchy of concepts. If reading the dictionary is not the most practical way to learn English, reading this book definitely makes exploring the American legal systems much less arduous. It is like the wheels under the car that will bring you there!

This well arranged text is a good introduction to the American Legal System and legal research. It fills a gap left by other introductory texts on legal research which, typically, do not include sections on the structure of our governmental system. Recommended for first year law students, graduate students in library science, or for other introductory courses on American law.