EagleiOnline

A hornbook is any commercially distributed intended to succinctly explain to a lay reader complex points of law. The phrase “hornbook” is a colloquial term used to refer to the great variety of study aids available to law students. Hornbooks are commonly used by many law students to help them understand complex and difficult areas in the study of law. Hornbooks are never required reading during a course at BC Law although they may be recommended or encouraged by instructors. You can purchase hornbooks online, at the BC Bookstore, or from other bookstores. There are hornbooks available on virtually every field of law studied at law schools and there are usually many different authors and editions available for any given course.

Each year, 1Ls flock to the Boston College Law School bookstore to frantically snap up every hornbook in sight. Despite the inevitability of purchase, we’d like to provide some perspective on the entire process. We hope that it will save you some stress, and perhaps even some money.

With respect to hornbooks generally, one should keep in mind that some professors and a few purist students think that hornbooks are a complete waste of time. The authors of these books, so the arguments go, are 1) exploiting the fear and uncertainty inherent in 1L in order to make a dime (hence the endless supply of new editions), and, more importantly 2) thwarting one of the primary purposes of 1L, which is to become comfortable reading law and summarizing cases.