The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study

Karl N. Llewellyn (1930)

A classic introduction to law and legal reasoning, originally delivered as lectures to first-year law students at Columbia.

Significance

A foundational text of American legal realism. Still assigned in law schools as an introduction to legal thinking.

Selected Excerpt

What officials do about disputes is, to my mind, the law itself. And the rules are important so far as they help you predict what the judges will do. That is all their importance, except as pretty playthings.

criminalcivil-rights

This text is in the public domain. Original publication: 1930.