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Scalia and Garner's Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Antonin Scalia (Author), Bryan A. Garner (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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In this groundbreaking book, Scalia and Garner systematically explain all the most important principles of constitutional, statutory, and contractual interpretation in an engaging and informative style – with hundreds of illustrations from actual cases. Is a burrito a sandwich? Is a corporation entitled to personal privacy? If you trade a gun for drugs, are you “using a gun” in a drug transaction? The authors grapple with these and dozens of equally curious questions while explaining the most principled, lucid, and reliable techniques for deriving meaning from authoritative texts. Meanwhile, the book takes up some of the most controversial issues in modern jurisprudence. The authors write with a well-argued point of view that is definitive yet nuanced, straightforward yet sophisticated.

ISBN-13

978-0314275554
Edition

1st
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

West
Publication date

July 5, 2012
Language

English
File size

982 KB
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008MFO6YG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ West; 1st edition (July 5, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 5, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 982 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 574 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #323,502 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #7 in Law Practice Research (Kindle Store)
- #13 in Trial Practice (Kindle Store)
- #18 in Jurisprudence (Kindle Store)

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Bryan A. Garner
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Bryan A. Garner (born Nov. 17, 1958) is an American lawyer, grammarian, and lexicographer. He also writes on jurisprudence (and occasionally golf). He is the author of over 25 books, the best-known of which are Garner’s Modern English Usage (4th ed. 2016) and Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (2012—coauthored with Justice Antonin Scalia), as well as four unabridged editions of Black’s Law Dictionary. He serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University. He also teaches from time to time at the University of Texas School of Law, Texas A&M School of Law, and Texas Tech School of Law.
In 2009, he was named Legal-Writing and Reference-Book Author of the Decade at a Burton Awards ceremony at the Library of Congress. He has received many other awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Book Award, the Scribes Book Award, the Bernie Siegan Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Center for Plain Language.
His work has played a central role in our understanding of modern judging, advocacy, grammar, English usage, legal lexicography, and the common-law system of precedent. His books are frequently cited by American courts of all levels, including the United States Supreme Court.
His friendship with the novelist David Foster Wallace is memorialized in Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace and Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing (2013). His friendship and writing partnership with Justice Antonin Scalia is depicted in the memoir Nino and Me: My Unusual Friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia (2018).
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Antonin Scalia
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A Guidice

A Must Read for Serious Lawyers - Serious Lawyers, not Egg-Sucking, Bottom-Feeding, Hallway Trash.

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2012

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To be the very best attorneys we can be, we must study. Don't ever hire a lawyer who has never read a case - without being paid to read it - since law school. Right? Thus, for attorneys committed to their professions, this book is essential.

I think my colleagues who dislike Scalia don't like his manner - his aloof, imperious, wheezy, almighty law-professor aura. We all remember that from law school and we detest it. Right? The real criticism isn't his devotion to textualism, it's our natural dislike for inflexible, close-minded people. Scalia is certainly that. (God help me if I ever appear before him...).

But the book is compelling. The Canons of statutory interpretation section is very useful, and very handy for legal subjects where statutes are bandied about constantly, and at every level (as they are with immigration law, for example). This section is where Garner's hand is most discernible, discussions of English usage are clear, bright, and rich with possibilities. And Garner's writing is a pleasure to read: as smooth and rich as oil. This is what you buy the book for.

Scalia is most prominent in the very lengthy introduction, with it's dogmatic insistence on textualist sensibilities. It's almost offensive. We feel almost as though we're being scolded from the bench, yes? Scalia is really answering his critics here much more than he is trying to enlighten the reader.

I'd be willing to bet that Garner strongly advised a heavy edit in the introduction, maybe to half the length, but was unsuccessful. And Scalia doesn't really write all that well either... it's not an elegant style. Reading Scalia is like trying to land a golf ball on a boulder-strewn fairway: uncomfortable, and downright trying at times. Many lawyers and judges find the "content" of his opinion (and other) writing objectionable, but I feel it'd be much easier to swallow if the "form" of the writing weren't so ponderous, and almost oppressive at times...

But the Canons of Construction section will stand you in good stead when you're writing briefs and memos. Buy the book, read half the introduction, then read the Canons section. Keep it close at hand when you're writing. It's good background, good fortification for serious, scholarly attorneys. (People Magazine will suffice for the rest of you...)

The book probably would have been better if Garner had written it alone, but it's still very much worth having. Even Scalia haters will like the book (c'mon, huh? The guy is from Trenton, after all...).

31 people found this helpful

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Leo Paws

Not Left or Right. Just much fun with language.

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2022

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Not Left or Right. Just much fun with language. Charmingly written. Intelligence and experience shine on every page. An interesting essay on history, complexity, and practice of interpreting what legislators (and authors of contracts) would have us live by. Well intended but often surprisingly obscure, obtuse, inconsistent, even sloppy. This is followed by seventy 2-3 page discussions of specific canons of interpretation. Each discussion includes history, examples, logic, practical significance, and plenty of reasons to laugh at what we have created. Crazy as our legal system seems, and perhaps not the only good solution, but what an amazing solution to the problem of trying to implement predictability and fairness in human affairs.

5 people found this helpful

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R. F. Peterson

Rather technical, very very useful - stick with it and you will be pleased

Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2012

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Writing a clear ordinance is difficult, at least it is for me. I'm a scientist and definitely not a lawyer. Making a even-handed legal determination for a land use variance is apparently difficult for some members given that responsibility on such local governmental bodies as boards or commissions. The canons (writing and interpreting rules) put forth in this book, coupled with real examples, are in my opinion mandatory reading for citizens serving the public at either end of a ordinance or statutue. I have recommended this book as the first entry on our nascent reading list for new members of township boards, county variance boards, and planning commissions.

January 2013 update. I am now just over 50% of the way through this excellent book. I found it so engrossing and instructive I have begun tackling the review and recommendations for re-writing of our newly-amended county zoning ordinances using the Scalia canons. I have thus far found 80 opportunities for improvement or clarification. I found one chapter in particular that needs substantial work in view of the canons.

I was talking with our County Attorney the other day and mentioned this book and again recommended it as an educational resource for our township officers and county citizens serving on commissions where interpreting state and county statutes were important. She was sufficiently interested to begin reading it herself. It will be interesting to hear her opinion.

10 people found this helpful

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Watson

Excellent. Esoteric. Valuable.

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2019

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Exactly what I expected from Scalia and Garner...well written, precise, and presented in a way that allows for immediate application into an attorney's legal writing. Each of the textualist 'rules' provides several examples and at least one anecdote that helps solidify the principle offered. For anyone who needs to understand, apply, and argue the meaning of the law, this book is a no-brainer.

Regardless of whether you agreed with Scalia's jurisprudence, this book is a valuable resource. Interpreting the law is the perfect title for this book...and...if the title doesn't get you excited, I can't imagine what lies between the front and back cover will either. Perhaps someone with an incredible passion for the law might find the subject matter fascinating, but for the most part, this is more of an instruction manual than an academically oriented read. I am a new attorney and refer to this text at least three or four times each week.

I don't remember what I paid for this--but I would pay triple knowing what I know now.

Scalia left an indelible mark on the Court, the legal community, and by virtue of his position as a justice, the course of the United States. I suspect there will be several books written about the man Scalia was--this is not one of them. Rather, this is a gift to those who practice that will be relevant for generations.

27 people found this helpful

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Customer

A book for all Lawyers

Reviewed in India on October 1, 2018

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Must for library

Tip of the Iceberg

An Unrelenting Dismantling of Consequentialism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 21, 2016

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If had not been clear before, the final line of the book will leave the reader in no doubt that the argument throughout 'Reading Law', more than for originalism or textualism, is for democracy itself.

Out of the dry matter of judicial interpretation, Scalia and Garner make an elegant case for judicial restraint as one of the bedrocks of American democracy. The authors codify canons of statutory interpretation that have enjoyed storeyed use, predominantly borrowing from Anglo-American jurisprudence. In a subsequent section, they deal with a variety of false notions and half-truths, reserving particularly withering scorn for legislative intent. (Which legislative intent? Of one congressman? Or lobbyist? And at which point in the legislative process? And why should the voice of one be allowed to rule the democractic will of the assembly as reflected in the words of the statute?)

The authors' case is that judicial respect for the statutes issuing from democratic assemblies is respect for the democratic process itself. It is clear throughout the work that the authors view the beginning of judicial activism as the end of democratic oversight and control. Scalia and Garner write respectively from a social conservative and socially liberal perspective, in favour of originalist and textualist interpretative approaches, and it is greatly to be regretted that these approaches are often crudely described as conservative, as though liberalism and the soundest interpretations of the democratic will were contradictory. To be a liberal textualist or liberal originalist is no more contradictory than to be a conservative consequentialist.

There is a poignancy too in reading the text: how greatly it is to be regretted that one American's finest jurists was taken from us in - judging by this work - his intellectual prime.

2 people found this helpful

Kelvin LEE

A must read for law students and lawyers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2016

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A good book which summarised principles in relation to interpreting statutory provisions in common law in simple language with examples. I guess many have come across Bennion but this one is much easier to understand. I have the great honour to hear Justice Scalia and Professor Garner to speak on the book in Hong Kong shortly before Justice Scalia passed away...

Mark Pummell

useful and original...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2015

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for me a very useful and original text; fresh insights and classificatory models that i've found very useful in these early days of my LLB studies...