<p>I have my hornbooks in my office, but I have the casebooks lined up on the bookshelf at home. I graduated 23 years ago and can’t imagine a reason I would need them other than to have our bookshelves say “lawyer.” I’m thinking of getting rid of them. Can anyone think of a reason why I should keep them?</p>
<p>I got rid of my casebooks shortly after law school but I held on to my Black’s Law Dictionary until 5 years ago. With the internet I feel no need to keep any law books at all.</p>
<p>LOL… I probably have mine somewhere, maybe boxed away or in the back of a shelf. Unless you have a book that your prof wrote along with an autograph, I’d say toss them. (I had several profs who wrote the books used in class, most notably my Constitutional Law prof, Jesse Choper – but it never occurred to me at the time to ask for his autograph.) I just have this aversion to throwing away books due to my upbringing, but I think I need to get over it.</p>
<p>Okay, you’ll laugh but my Constitutional Law one came in handy when my daughter was preparing for Duke Moot for high school students and also with a lot they did for AP Gov’t. I’m glad I didn’t get rid of them.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any reason to keep them! I threw out all of ours just last year though - when we needed the space in the attic for something else.</p>
<p>I still have all my undergrad books from my English major in a box in the garage. I just can’t part with Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, et. al </p>
<p>My dream is to turn our sloppy downstairs den, where the kids have studied and hung out for the past 6 years, into a “library” once D leaves for college in the fall. Then I will pull out the books from my BA and MA days and make their reacquaintance. I think I even kept some of my French books from my year abroad.</p>
<p>I have them, but boxed away and I can’t imagine why I would even look at them other than for nostalgic reasons.</p>
<p>My husband and I are both lawyers and collectively we kept several – one on remedies, because, really, how much does that change? And one on Estates (being a T&E lawyer) – but use that simply to hide money in the convenient pocket part, with the name of the text reminding us of, uh, money! Husband’s been practicing 26 years, and me 23. Husband’s field, criminal law, changes so often, it would probably be malpractice to keep crim. law books. On the other hand, I have a collection of probate codes from 1970 and every single year need to refer back to one of them, based upon a trust or will that was created at a specific time. Even though the Mortmain statute was abolished in California eons ago, I find cases we get where it is important to know whether that (or some other long ago abolished statute) is of relevance.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure all my law school books were gone within a year of my graduation. Even my practice materials are iffy these days. In my office we still have the case reporters we kept current up until about ten years ago, but even those were discontinued once we converted to online access. Every once in a while I pull one off the shelf to look over a case - but it’s gotten to the point where that’s almost weird. </p>
<p>Books. Who’d a thought?</p>
<p>Interesting question. I’m pretty sure they’re around somewhere in a box. They’re not in my office and not on my bookshelves at home, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them. I DO have my Black’s law dictionary at work, though. And it’s come in handy over the years.</p>
<p>I graduated from law school in 1979 but still have most of my old hornbooks in the bookcase in my office. And, being a litigator, occasionally still even take a quick look at Prosser on Torts, and Calamari & Perillo and Murray on Contracts. As well as Black’s Law Dictionary, if I’m trying to remember how to spell something like “de minimus non curat lex.” Or is it “de minimis”?</p>
<p>Casebooks, though? I think I kept one as a souvenir; the rest I threw out at least 20 years ago.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, I found an old box once that had my father’s law school casebooks in it. (Columbia, class of 1948.) My mother was in the same class – that’s how they met – but she wasn’t the type to save things like that. I’ll bet my father still has that box somewhere. And that he hasn’t touched it once in 60 years! (He still goes to work every day, at 88. Something I fervently hope I’m not doing at his age, if I’m lucky enough to live so long!)</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>Long gone, except for Black’s Law Dictionary, which I received as a gift during my first year. With that, my firm’s library and Lexis-Nexis/Westlaw, I can find everything I need.</p>
<p>I finally dumped most of mine about 10 years after graduation. But I kept a couple for sentimental reasons: the big brown Con Law book because I heart Con Law, and Larry Sullivan’s antitrust book (Calmom - we share the same alma mater, and Sullivan was my idol. Choper was busy being dean, so I never had a class from him 
)</p>
<p>I have a few–but w/Westlaw, they are pure decoration in our library. Gold lettering looks cool.</p>
<p>I guess they could be recycled if you wanted to get rid of them?</p>
<p>I have gradually parted with mine. Might have one or two on a shelf somewhere. Black’s- no one actually gets rid of THAT, do they?<br>
Do y’all remember how hard it was to carry the stupid books around, especially back in the day of “regular” briefcases? They weighed a TON.</p>
<p>Casebooks? We don’t need no stinkin’ casebooks!</p>
<p>Kept mine (and my hornbooks) muuuuch longer than should have been necessary (except Evidence, which is still useful) just to be able to prove that I was a Lawyer. All gone now, and rather hard to get rid of. Nobody wants old casebooks :eek:.</p>
<p>MomofWildChild–I remember my back-pack must have weighed 40 lbs! At least it was an upper-body work-out!</p>
<p>Do law students today carry nothing but a laptop? I’d image that’s all you’d need (Black’s online, notes on PC, books online…).</p>
<p>If you live in New England, they can be very handy for winter driving – just toss a few into the trunk and you’ll have plenty of extra weight for traction on those slippery roads. :-)</p>
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<p>No. Mine is still chugging along 20+ years later, even though it was a cheap paperback edition and is in pretty shoddy shape :)</p>
<p>I had no idea that so many of us are lawyers!</p>