Books for Lawyers

Trial Guides is America's leading litigation publisher of books for lawyers. Since 2004, Trial Guides has published cutting-edge methods for handling and trying legal cases. We have more members of the Inner Circle of Advocates (the leading 100 plaintiff lawyers in the United States) than all other legal publishers combined. In the past 20 years, every notable book for the plaintiff's bar has been published or distributed by Trial Guides including Rules of the Road, David Ball on Damages, Reptile, Polarizing the Case, and many more.

Many lawyers leave law school with an understanding of the concepts of law, but no knowledge of how to actually practice it. This is particularly problematic for new attorneys who choose to start their own law practice, or start their career at a firm that provides legal services that still rely on outdated methods. The methods of successful personal injury practice have completely changed. 

Books for Lawyers on Running a Law Firm

Trial Guides' books for lawyers cover fundamental aspects of running a law firm. While common business books may set the groundwork (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, or Michael Gerbers’s “The E-Myth”), attorneys need more than general management books to run a successful law practice.

Trial Guides topics include sections on hiring the best people as law firm employees and paralegals; managing a law firm; case selection; and determining how to improve public safety through the practice of law. The Plaintiff Lawyer’s Playbook offers unique insights for lawyers at every stage of experience.

Some Trial Guides books, such as Trial by Woman and Changing Laws Saving Lives, show how female lawyers excel in the historically male dominated trial bar, how to build a female-based trial firm, and how female co-counsel can add the winning edge to a litigation team.

Trial Guides books such as Digital Marketing for Law Firms and How Good Attorneys Become Great Rainmakers also address how to get legal business including traditional and digital marketing for law firms.

Books for Lawyers on Pre-litigation Matters

Most civil legal cases settle before litigation is filed. Trial Guides books for lawyers cover all aspects of pre-litigation including case selection, successful methods of establishing a professional relationship with clients, how to develop your case with appropriate case evaluations and expert opinions and more. Bill Barton’s book Integrated Advocacy draws upon an extensive career to address some of these issues.

For personal injury claims Trial Guides has books such as Winning Settlements and Running with the Bulls on the best methods of writing demand letters that are sent to the insurer or defendant to propose settlement terms. 

Other Trial Guides books, such as Winning Settlements discusses how your reputation as a lawyer is tracked by insurers and technology platforms as one determinant of your client’s settlement offer.  Winning Settlements and other Trial Guides books, such as Running with the Bulls, help you build and refine your negotiation skills in pre-litigation negotiations, throughout litigation, within mediation, and during trial.

Trial Guides books also focus on how to thoroughly consider the ways in which you can lose your case, and how to avoid them.  These include Winning Case Preparation, which helps you work up your case for trial in a way that helps you avoid the pitfalls. Other books on specific areas of law such as Advanced Premises Liability, or The Medical Malpractice Trial, help you plan well for trial long before you get there.

Our books and on-demand webinars, such as The Indispensable Paralegal also address the pre-litigation work of paralegals in law firms.

Books for Lawyers on Discovery

Trial Guides is a leading publisher of legal books on discovery and depositions. 

Trial Guides publishes The Deposition Handbook, the definitive text on propounding and defending depositions used by several of the largest law firms in the world. Now it its 6th edition, it is a common reference book for the general counsel for Fortune 100 companies, the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as smaller firms in corporate litigation, family law, personal injury, intellectual property, and other fields of law. 

Trial Guides is also the publisher of the leading deposition book for the plaintiff bar, Advanced Depositions. This book helps lawyers obtain outstanding admissions from adverse witnesses.

Trial Guides publishes the definitive (and only) book for lawyers on FRCP 30(b)(6) depositions: 30(b)(6): Deposing Corporations, Organizations & the Government. This book helps lawyers write notices and document discovery for the depositions of deponents representing corporations, organizations or governmental entities. This is a Trial Guides' customer favorite resulting in a strong following by lawyers who are involved in a wide variety of litigation including corporate litigation, intellectual property, antitrust litigation, personal injury, product defect, sex abuse, employment law, RICO, and many other areas of law.

Books for lawyers on ADR (Mediation and Arbitration)

If you have attended law school in the past 20 years, your education probably stressed alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, over trial.  Whether you find yourself in a court ordered settlement conference, private mediation or arbitration, you need to create a strategy and prepare properly. 

Trial Guides books help you create a plan for achieving success for your clients regardless of whether that is to thoroughly prepare for mediation, or choose not to mediate at all. If you choose to engage in mediation, you can review books like Winning Settlements, Changing Laws Saving Lives, or other Trial Guides books to determine what you can do before mediation, during mediation and after a failed mediation to achieve the best outcome for the client.  

While the forum is different, many of the methods discussed in Trial Guides books can be used in binding arbitration.  

Books for Lawyers on Trial

Trial Guides has nearly 100 books on different aspects of how to succeed in trial. Browse our collections on deposition, voir dire, cross-examination and more.

The most basic of these is Rick Friedman’s The Elements of Trial, which provides an excellent overview of the basics and the finer points of trying your first ten trials. This book, and the accompanying video series, Introduction to Trial Advocacy, covers many aspects of taking a case from beginning to end with specific instruction on each part of a trial.

For those lawyers with more trial experience, Trial Guides has a series of books on every skill from framing your case, trial themes, storytelling, communication methods, understanding jury bias, to topics like addressing damages in trial. 

Other Trial Guides books teach successful, trial-tested methods for voir dire, opening statement, direct examination, cross examination and closing statements created by leading trial lawyers and trial consultants. Best selling trial books include: Rules of the Road, David Ball on Damages, Polarizing the Case, Don’t Eat the Bruises, Voir Dire & Opening Statement, Moe Levine on Advocacy and many more.

Books for Lawyers on Life as a Lawyer

Trial Guides also publishes books on how to achieve a better work-life balance than prior generations of lawyers. These books also address how your life outside work and the courtroom ultimately help you lead a better quality of life and achieve better results in trial. Key amongst these is Rick Friedman’s Becoming a Trial Lawyer, and The Way of the Trial Lawyer.

Trial Guides is the leading litigation publisher for lawyers on a wide variety of practical litigation methods for lawyers.  Reading and implementing winning methods published in Trial Guides books will help you achieve your goals as a lawyer.