Black's Law Dictionary 7th Edition

I know Garner slightly, having worked with him on a project some years back. He is, in my opinion, the single most qualified person in the world to "edit" this book. I put "edit" in quotes because he simply rewrote many of the definitions, going to the source law for the proper wording. West properly made him editor in chief of Black's, which had been in decline for years. For several years, they (West) seemed to leave him alone to redo the book as he saw fit, and the 7th edition (if that was his first, I forget) was a magisterial effort.

This one is mostly as good, but he (mostly) fails to put back in the book one of the saving virtues of prior editions-- case law citations to seminal cases dealing with the term and its definition(s). Instead, this edition features references to CJS does anyone past law school use it CJS any more) and the West Key Number System. The latter can be pretty cool if you have a West subscription that allows you access to the digests, but that level of product is quite expensive. Law students get pretty much everything for "free," but unless you work for a big firm or a government willing to pay for it, extras like the digests are a luxury. In a cursory examination of my new 8th Edition, I found very, very few real case law cites-- in fact, many of the block quotes are from other treatises and even nutshells.

I'm sure West is behind citing to the Key Numbers in lieu of cases. I hope this is the extent of their meddling in what is still the only legal dictionary worth having, and they won't mess it up through dubious marketing ploys and neglect, the way they've done with FindLaw.

this book has proven to be very useful at college, i use it mostly to do my legal research.

This dictionary/edition is very helpful for giving accurate and concise definitions. I don't take it to class, but I have it next to meet at all times when doing homework and usually write the definitions next to words that I didn't know. Every law student should have a dictionary, pocket size or otherwise, and this one was recommended to me so I recommend it to you.

My daughter just graduated from college with a paralegal degree and wanted the Black's Law Dictionary. I got it as a gift for her and she was thrilled with the quality of this book. I was also impressed with what I got for the price!

In my opinion blacks online (through west) is too cumbersome to use. too many redirects and long paragraphs. But this book is not essential either. You'll know the phrases you need after your first month or so, and all the legal libraries have a bunch of these all over the place. Bringing it to class is almost impossible because it's so big. But it is nice to have also. I would recommend this over the 8th edition because it's so much cheaper. I don't see much difference between the two. This will sit in my office throughout my career. However it's use will continue to be limited more and more.