There are four books that I would recommend, but with respect to two of them, you should probably only read one of the two (time permitting).

The first is “Don’t Go to Law School (Unless)” A Law Professor’s Inside Guide to Maximizing Opportunity and Minimizing Risks.

• This book opened my eyes to the unfortunate situation law school creates for many prospective students. This includes incurring crushing amounts of debt and facing bleak job prospects, accompanied by the prospect of jobs that many pre-law students know nothing about. Many students don’t really know what litigation, for example, entails and enter law school thinking that they’ll just obtain a JD and achieve success. This is wrong. And this book plainly states: Don’t go to law school if you don’t plan on doing real lawyerly work—i.e., litigation or transactional work. And thus, you must understand what that work really entails. It concludes by stating that only a fraction of students who actually enroll students should enter law school—make sure you’re in that segment.

“Thinking Like a Lawyer” by Frederick Schauer or “The Legal Analyst” by Ward Farnsworth”

• These two books provide a ton of substantive content about the theory, the structure, the policy goals, and the underpinnings of our American Legal System. They give you practical insight into the basic workings and, undeniably, arm you with a paradigm that will be greatly superior than your peer. For example, Thinking Like a Lawyer gives you deep explanations concerning arguments by analogy, statutory interpretation, and the nature of precedent and authority, as I wrote about in this prior post. The Legal Analyst, on the other hand, might go into depth about many psychological concepts prevalent in the law—such as hindsight bias and anchoring, as well as the role of some economic concepts in the Law, like the tragedy of the commons, and also more fundamental legally related policy issues, like slippery slopes.

“Getting to Maybe: How to Excel in Law School Exams”

• This book will show you how to exceed on law school exams—plain and simple. Want an upper-hand on your classmates? Read this book. Want to feel comfortable about the seemingly indomitable prospect of taking an exam that determines your entire grade for the course? Read this book. Want a structure for thinking about taking an exam? Again, read this book. I blogged about this one more extensively in the past.

While the other books the answers recommended may give you insight into what law school, and being a lawyer might be like, these ones will give you the tools, might I say the toolkit, to achieve, and also help you to avoid the mistake of entering law school in the first place—Don’t Go to Law School (Unless).