The Bramble Bush

Written over 80 years ago, but highly relevant today, THE BRAMBLE BUSH remains one of the books most frequently and strongly recommended for students to read when considering law school, just before beginning its study, or early in the first semester. Its first edition began as a collection from a series of introductory lectures given by legal legend Karl Llewellyn to new law students at Columbia University. It still speaks to law, legal reasoning, class prep, and exam-taking skills in a way that makes it a classic for each new generation.


The Legal Legends Edition features an extensive 2012 Introduction by Stewart Macaulay, a senior professor of law at the University of Wisconsin. He places this work into the modern classroom and explains its context and current value to law students and lawyers, as well as the changes to legal education since the book first was released. Simply put, Macaulay writes, "The Bramble Bush is a book that anyone interested in law schools or law should read."


Llewellyn's pointed and clear explanations of case briefing before class, visualization of cases, active learning in class, note-taking, the use of precedent, exam format, and the limits of logic have proved timeless and highly practical. They remain excellent advice for current students to consider and implement in their own journey into the law. This is no Chamber of Commerce speech of mere platitudes about law practice and the grandeur of the bar. To be sure, Llewellyn believed in law school and legal education, and in dreaming big about a life in the law. But he was--famously--a realist above all, and this book gets to the nuts and bolts of studying law successfully in traditional legal education. 


Whether from the enduring nature of his hands-on advice, or from the reality that the first year of law study and its classroom method just have not changed very much over many years, the book remains, by all accounts, targeted to the way 'thinking like a lawyer' continues in the modern law school.


Now in a high-quality eBook edition from Quid Pro Books, THE BRAMBLE BUSH is part of the Legal Legends Series. It features active contents, linked notes, and even embedded page numbers from the standard print editions--for continuity of referencing, citations, or classroom assignment. Quid Pro's hyperaccurate reproduction of the original text is unlike any other version available, even including modern reprints from traditional publishers (who nonetheless appear to use poor scanning and thus altered the text, omit sentences, add many italics, misspell legal terms, and change the pagination). Only Quid Pro's editions of this classic work respect Llewellyn's book by presenting it as he meant it, yet in a modern format and clear presentation for a new generation.