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Books for Tort Law

What books are good for Tort? It'd be handy to have recommendations for one good casebook, one book that explains things concisely and neatly for essay crisis situations (like Herring's Palgrave Master for Crim), and one book that goes into a bit more depth but not too much depth (like Ashworth rather than Smith and Hogan).

Reply 1

Tory_boy

2

Casebook
Weir's casebook is a bit outdated now. The best one is by Lunney & Oliphant. It has extracts from all the important cases and great readable commentary too.

Textbook
Thats easy! 'Tort Law' by N.McBride & R.Bagshaw. This is the only textbook that I have used for which I can honestly say that it is made for students!

Concise textbook
Hedley's textbook is probably the concisest without going into nutshells territory. The palgrave text by Mullis & Oliphant is much more detail- its bordering on a detailed textbook really. I would go for Hedley if you are going to get McBride and Bagshaw.

Reply 2

trina

1

We were set Markenisis and Deakin as our textbook. It was OK but not the greatest read of my lifetime

Reply 3

fundamentally

15

Tory_boy

Casebook
Weir's casebook is a bit outdated now. The best one is by Lunney & Oliphant. It has extracts from all the important cases and great readable commentary too.

Textbook
Thats easy! 'Tort Law' by N.McBride & R.Bagshaw. This is the only textbook that I have used for which I can honestly say that it is made for students!

Concise textbook
Hedley's textbook is probably the concisest without going into nutshells territory. The palgrave text by Mullis & Oliphant is much more detail- its bordering on a detailed textbook really. I would go for Hedley if you are going to get McBride and Bagshaw.

You appear to be a wealth of information !!
What are good books for contracts and land law ?

Reply 4

tiggerish

OP

Cheers toryboy!

Reply 5

Tory_boy

2

fundamentally

You appear to be a wealth of information !!
What are good books for contracts and land law ?

Contract
The best all round book (i.e. text/cases/materials) is authored by Ewan McKendrick.
If you buy that, there is no need to buy a simple casebook like that of J.C Smith or J. Poole. Basically, with McKendricks text you are getting all that you could possible get from J.C Smith and J.Poole. It has way more informative and interesting commentary.

Concise textbook
Probably the best is by O'Sullivan and Hilliard.
However if you buy the J.C Smith casebook you might want to use the same author's concise textbook. I suppose you could choose Smith's textbook even if you weren't going to get his casebook but in my opinion O'Sullivan's is more readable, concise and clear. Another good one is McKendricks palgrave text. I found it good for some areas (e.g. Third Party rights) but neutral (i.e. didn't add anything to his casebook) for others.
Textbook
Obviously there is Treitel's textbook, Cheshire et al etc but IMO you would do better to read them in the library. Why? Because they are all pretty expensive and not that student-friendly-- they belong in a library!

Land
Textbook
The best one is probably R. Smith's 'Property Law'
Students tend to prefer more colourful and slightly less detailed textbooks for Land law though: Mark Thompson's 'Modern Land Law' and Martin Dixon's 'Land Law'. Thompson's textbook is probably better than Dixons if only because he doesn't treat you like a 7 year old!

Concise textbook
There is only one good one! Authored by K. Gray and S. Gray. This book has been my life-saver for Land Law. The same authors also produce that very thick Land Law textbook (new edition due soon) which students are more likely to use as a murder weapon than a text to learn from! The smaller textbook is supposed to be the larger textbook simplified.

Casebook
I use Maudsley and Burn's casebook (strangely all internet sources I have been looking are saying that its out of print) its very good. It includes extracts from all the main cases and some detailed commentary. In a subject where I really have to push myself to look at cases and statutes, it makes my job a lot easier. Another good casebook (I am told) is Roger Smith's 'Property Law: Cases and Materials'. I remember not buying this book because I managed to download a sample document at the time I was considering buying it. That sample document (which I can't seem to find now) contained extracts from all the chapters of his casebook! It was something like 225 pages long, so I didn't end up buying that particular book :biggrin:

.

Reply 6

fjurble

Toryboy, I thought I'd ask whether you have any similar suggestions for Admin Law (which sounds a bit like detailed Constitutional to me: am I entirely wrong?)

Thank you!

Reply 7

Tory_boy

2

fjurble

Toryboy, I thought I'd ask whether you have any similar suggestions for Admin Law (which sounds a bit like detailed Constitutional to me: am I entirely wrong?)

Thank you!

Administrative law is often annexed to the Constiutional law part of the course but it can be studied separately. I suppose its 'detailed Constitutional law' in the sense that, with the exception of a few areas in Constitutional law(Public Order etc), the courts really haven't had to decide on public law issues. In administrative law you learn about how citizens are able to enforce some rights through means of judicial review etc...Ombudsman etc...

With regards to what books I used. I thought about buying the 'Administrative law' text in the Clarendon law series but then decided against it because i) I didn't think I really needed it (see later) ii) it was pretty expensive and was available in the library anyway if I needed it. Good texts to look at are:W. Wade's 'Administrative law' and P.Craig's 'Administrative law'. I would not recommend buying these books however. They are too expensive an investment to be economically viable for students! Still they are likely to be available in your library and you should definitely consult them because they are quite authoratative.

With regards to learning judicial review. You really need to concentrate on learning the case-law. So, I just used reading lists and law reports. Learning about Ombudsman is really boring, marginally more interesting is when you study Parliamentary Ombudsman. For this area, I simply consulted Bradley and Ewing. It wasn't that detailed but it did just fine. I think I also consulted Barnett's 'Constitutional and Administrative Law' textbook, that was quite a nice easy read to get an overview of the area.

So, in all I can't really recommend any good texts for this area. I thought that I would be able to learn what I needed to with i) the text that I already had (Bradley and Ewing) and ii) law reports.

Reply 8

fjurble

Thanks so much, you're really a treasure trove of knowledge! Also (I'm guessing) best of luck with Finals.

Reply 9

Isaiah Berlin

4

For Tort, Winfield and Jolowicz isn't too bad as a text book.

For Admin, can't go past Beatson, Matthews and Elliott's book - its like McKenrick for Contract and Lunney and Oliphant for Tort - lifesaver!

Reply 10

trina

1

For Contract, try Mindy Chen Wishart's book (called 'Contract Law' or something equally inspired) as a basic textbook- it's really useful and much easier to read than most of the others.

Reply 11

Tory_boy

2

Ooooh yes forgot that one. It has detailed but easy to follow diagrams/flow-charts as well (lots of them).

Reply 12

sweet_fluffy_nuke

Tory_boy

Contract
The best all round book (i.e. text/cases/materials) is authored by Ewan McKendrick.
If you buy that, there is no need to buy a simple casebook like that of J.C Smith or J. Poole. Basically, with McKendricks text you are getting all that you could possible get from J.C Smith and J.Poole. It has way more informative and interesting commentary.

Concise textbook
Probably the best is by O'Sullivan and Hilliard.
However if you buy the J.C Smith casebook you might want to use the same author's concise textbook. I suppose you could choose Smith's textbook even if you weren't going to get his casebook but in my opinion O'Sullivan's is more readable, concise and clear. Another good one is McKendricks palgrave text. I found it good for some areas (e.g. Third Party rights) but neutral (i.e. didn't add anything to his casebook) for others.
Textbook
Obviously there is Treitel's textbook, Cheshire et al etc but IMO you would do better to read them in the library. Why? Because they are all pretty expensive and not that student-friendly-- they belong in a library!

Any suggestions for Trusts ?

Reply 13

trixiedix

Textbook: Hanbury and Martin Modern Equity

Casebook: Pearce and Stevens "Law of Trusts and Equitable Obligations" is fantastic. Its latest edition has been changed quite a lot, and is now like McKendrick for Contract... The diagrams are especially helpful.

Reply 14

sweet_fluffy_nuke

trixiedix

Textbook: Hanbury and Martin Modern Equity

Casebook: Pearce and Stevens "Law of Trusts and Equitable Obligations" is fantastic. Its latest edition has been changed quite a lot, and is now like McKendrick for Contract... The diagrams are especially helpful.

Thanks for the advice.
I now have ordered the Pearce book

Books for Tort Law

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