Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, if a bit earnest
Review: I hung out with some wisecrackers during law school. We had to keep it to ourselves, but we found plenty of targets for satire and parody. This book certainly made it easier by creating the cliche of Prof. Kingsfield. Whenever we had a professor who didn't measure up to the perfection of the cliche, well, it was time for another round of chuckling.Read the original for a more indepth portrayal than the movie, but try not to let the earnestness affect you.
Rating: 
Summary: an accurate description
Review: I read One L the summer before starting Yale Law School over 20 years ago. Although I was not at Harvard, I found that Turow's book conveyed the sense of that first year with remarkable accuracy -- the time pressures, the atmosphere of intellectual excitement, the impressive caliber of my classmates, and the fascinating discussions. I routinely recommend this book to anyone who is thinking of going to law school.
Rating:
Summary: The Truth About Lawschool
Review: This book is a deep exploration of the emotional and mental rollercoaster of the first year of lawschool. I read it after my first year, and was astounded that my experience was so similar. It is a revealing look at human reactions during a time of extreme stress and scrutiny. A good read for people considering law school and anyone who has wondered what it is like.
Rating:
Summary: Mighty H?
Review: Turow's description of his agony as a first-year law student at Harvard provides "the rest of us" with a look inside the Ivy League. Turow insists that those who regard themselves as the best and are awarded said label are forced to stumble just like the rest of us. But the best parts of One L are those which do not focus on starched-collar-stiff-rod Harvard. No. The best comes when Turow talks about trying to get up for class then chill on the rare weekend in the mountains. He describes how he can't get to sleep the night before his first finals. No pills, no sex, nothing will get him to a peaceful rest. During year 1L, Turow's most fascinating realization for this reader lay in the discovery that despite intellectual prowess held by Harvard students and faculty alike, it is their human foibles that makes their stories most readable. And "One L" is just that.
Rating:
Summary: What law school feels like
Review: While some reviewers have criticized One L as irrelevant to the modern law school experience, they miss its fundamental contribution to the preparation for today's law school. One L continues to sell thirty years later because it is a book about what competition in law school feels like. Thus, it matters not whether the events portrayed in One L are real or whether today's law students experience the same teaching style as Turow did at Harvard in the 1970s. Competition still reigns supreme. An excellent comparative read with One L is Scott Gaille's 2002 fictional account of "hidden" competition at the University of Chicago in The Law Review. Both books make the reader feel the vital competition that still defines the law school experience, albeit in different eras. Reading these two books is better preparation for law school than any of the "how to succeed in law school" volumes. To the extent books like One L and The Law Review romanticize law school competition, so be it. The feelings they capture are real.
Rating:
Summary: What's it like in Law School?
Review: Like many others that read 'One L' by Scott Turow, I am about to start my first year in law school. I'm not going to Harvard though. I was warned by the enrollment office at the University to not read this book. However, a friend bought a copy for me, and I decided to give it a read. All I can say is 'wow'. I now understand why the enrollment office didn't want me to read this book. 'One L' paints a nightmare of a year for incoming law students as they cram for finals, deal with the pressures of the Socratic Method, and compete with each other for a spot on the Law Review. Turow does a wonderful job conveying his hopes, anxieties, successes, and disappointments while in school. The reader can't help but be thrilled with him at his success, and then share his agony when 'the Incident' with a notorious professor occurs in the first semester. One of the best parts of this book is that Turow includes his wife. She is introduced from time to time to shed a fraction of light on the outsiders view. When Turow's section discusses retaliating against a professor, she can't see what the big deal is. This all leads to a truth Turow hints upon throughout his novel: inside a major institution, no matter what type, we frequently get caught up in what we are doing and lose perspective. It doesn't just happen in Law School, but colleges, churches, clubs, and work environments as well. Like Turow, I have not been a student for several years now, and also like Turow, I am married. I am eager to start my law education and this novel fueled my excitement but also filled me with a sense of nervousness. Both of my sisters-in-law have recently graduated from different Law Schools, and they have assured me things aren't as bad as they appear in Turow's book. Overall, I am glad I read it as I feel like I have some idea of what to expect now. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in institutions of education or those looking for a good story.
Rating: 
Summary: 2 Stars for the Afterword
Review: A telling passage is when Turow claims to quote some veterans to the effect that their first year of law school at Harvard was the scariest situation they had ever been in. All I can say is these veterans must not have been in combat. The book is so hysterical like this. One girl cries five times a day it is said. This book illustrates the way people make myths about their own success. It's not enough for some people that they are blessed with intelligence, talent, rich parents, or that they have a great work ethic and are ambitious. No, some people just have to shout it from the mountain that IT WAS NOT EASY! That's what this book is; it's a plea to recognize Turow as one who HAD TO SUFFER TO GET WHERE HE IS NOW. I found it comical that he was getting mad at his teachers and deciding that they were "abusing their positions of power" over the students. Ho-hum. John McCain probably had it easier as a POW I guess. This book nicely illustrates how in academic settings where the stakes are low, you find the most solemn and serious bickering. I would guess that many of the people who are thrilled with this book could similarly be susceptible to inflating the level of drama in their lives. The Afterword, written some ten years later, on the other hand is an interesting essay and in it Turow's criticisms of legal education (his main point that law school trains potential law professors, not practicing lawyers) are better stated. All in all a silly melodramatic book. Real law school is like real courtroom. The law (IMO) is supremely interesting. The places where it is taught and practiced are, however, more often than not, dull and listless and only occasionally punctuated by something exciting. But I understand the desire people have to puff up what they do and I expect this book will remain popular with a certain crowd. One last note: I found the few paragraphs that actually discussed substantive law to be VERY funny; Turow just couldn't be that stupid as to find things like (tortious) assault, or consideration in a contract, to be so difficult. All law students go through an initial period of learning the language so to speak. But the stuff is not hard to learn. Anyone with an average IQ can learn this stuff. What IS difficult is that one must learn a vast amount of it, and then be able to recall it very quickly during an examination, and write a discussion of legal issues in an orderly fashion.
Rating:
Summary: exciting story about learning
Review: While I thought some parts of "One L" were melodramatic it is the rare book which can make the struggle of learning exciting to read about. I would guess that nearly every law student or prospective law student in the last 20 yrs has read this book or knows about it. I read it myself before, during and after law school and while I found many things in the book true, much of what he described about law school I didn't experience at my school, Gonzaga University. Granted, Gonzaga in the 1990s isn't Harvard in the 1970s but I doubt that even Harvard is like what Turow described. Turow does accurately describe the crushing amount of work and the stress of law exams that 1Ls experience. The obsession with grades, making Law Review, the clannish study groups were not part of my experience at Gonzaga and I doubt that it is the experience of most law graduates wherever they went to school. Whatever law school you'll go to you'll work harder than you ever did in your life but it isn't the inhumane world that Turow describes, at least not where I went. There's nothing magical about the top tier law schools in my opinion other than the prestige and post-grad networking. The textbooks at Gonzaga were the same that Harvard used and the professors we had were on a whole very good with several Ivy League law grads amongst them. The maxim a few of my classmates had probably is true in every law school--the first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, the third year they bore you to death. Turow's book does get the "scare you to death" part down. I would've like to have seen his take on the 2L and 3L years as well.
Rating: 
Summary: great read, but simply not true
Review: Scott Turow has immortalized The Paper Chase in book form. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of one of the best professors in the history of legal teaching. Turow creates a villain out of Perini, a professor that in received the highest anonymous student rating of any teacher at Harvard that year, a fact carefully omitted by the author. As a result of this book, Perini, a teacher that is utterly devoted to students in real life, almost left the teaching profession altogether. The book is an exageration. Some students study as much as Turow claims to have studied, and the occaisional "unprepared" incident does still happen. However, many if not most law schools have moved away from the Socratic method. Long hours, ultra-competetive students, and frustration are still present in law schools (including Harvard), but not to the extent that Turow describes. For those thinking of going to law school, this book is not an accurate reflection. Take it with a grain of salt. Turow created a villain where there was none to be found, a fiction writer caught between truth and fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: Turrow's autobiographical tale provides a warm feeling
Review: Turrow's autobiographical tale provides a warm feeling of satisfaction Sometimes in life, although not always, you can get a good idea of a book by the cover. Tell that to a teacher and a sharp look and the, "give everyone a chance..." talk will be asserted. After reading this book I changed my philosophy, because quite simply, this book and its cover reflect the uniqueness and distinctness they both poses. Scott Turrow's One L, was a joy to read because it felt like a note from a good girlfriend. The author does such a good job of embracing the reader into his life, through classes, cases and the like that a feeling of live presence could almost be suggested. What Turrow accomplishes in this novel accedes a higher level than just completion. Turrow dives into the world of law school and challenges head on the myths and misconceptions associated with the big bad year of one L.
The only literary device that could defend why this novel is so inviting is the tone displayed forth from the beginning. Right away a tone of comfort and sincerity is promoted. His tone reflects his own journey as the protagonist and those bumps along the road that got him where he was. It seems as if before he reached his new school he was a believer in those "Harvard Urban Legends" as well. Overall I enjoyed the novel, mostly because the language used was introduced and explained just as it was in the journey Turrow took. His overwhelmingly positive from the start tone sets up a nice relationship with the reader to come back and converse with him. I would highly recommend this novel as a fun rainy-day activity but I also enjoyed reading it on my own time as well. Because, how often do a book and the cover it possesses get to be alike?
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