You need a good Law Dictionary to properly learn the law.
Who has the better Law Dictionary -- Black’s Law Dictionary or Dean’s Law Dictionary?
The law is all technical definitions. Technical definitions are the lifeblood of understanding the law. In law school you must know the technical definitions in order to ask the right questions to do your issue spotting on exams. How well you do in law school depends on how well you memorized the law and how many questions you can ask. If you ask all the questions you will spot all the issues. We examined 180 key definitions for contract law in both Black’s Law Dictionary and Dean’s Law Dictionary. Black’s Law Dictionary had no exam writing definitions for 161 of the terms and marginal exam writing definitions for the rest. A good exam writing definition gives you all the elements that comprise the prima facie case for the word being defined. Black’s Law Dictionary just doesn’t have any exam writing definitions for the vast majority of the key words in contracts and has marginal definitions for the rest. Dean’s Law Dictionary has exam writing definitions for all 180 terms. In fact, Dean’s Law Dictionary has exam writing definitions for all the terms in every major course in law school. Black’s Law Dictionary has marginal exam writing definitions for on average 16% of the terms and no definitions for the rest. Do you really want to trust your law school and professional law career to Black’s Law Dictionary?
Black's Law Dictionary is printed and obsolete.
Black’s Law Dictionary is printed. Dean’s Law Dictionary is digital. Anything as complex and complicated as a Law Dictionary, which is meant to be used many times per day, must be available in a digital format. Black's Law Dictionary used to be the standard but it is printed. It is impossible to easily use Black’s Law Dictionary to search for words or content within the Law Dictionary And forget about using Black’s Law Dictionary to copy or paste the material you need into your word documents or class notes.
Black's Law Dictionary is heavy and you will have to lug it around everywhere you go each and every day. Of course, there is something to be said for the extra exercise you get but when you add that to everything else you carry around, Black’s Law Dictionary is just a nuisance.
Black’s Law Dictionary is more expensive because it is printed. So besides having significantly less utility, Black’s Law Dictionary costs you more.
Black's Law Dictionary has virtually no explanations for complex idiomatic terms.
We checked three editions of Black’s Law Dictionary for the size of the definition for Felony Murder. Black’s Law Dictionary has an average of 120 words to define the idiomatic term of Felony Murder. Black’s Law Dictionary has no sub definitions. Black’s Law Dictionary has no statutory nor any case cites for any of the three Black’s Law Dictionary definitions for felony murder in the three editions. Black’s Law Dictionary has no comparison definitions for felony murder and any other legal terms or concepts.
In comparison to Black’s Law Dictionary, Dean’s Law Dictionary has 19 definitions and sub definitions including one comparison definition with a grand total of 30,788 words, and over one thousand case and statutory cites. Do you really think Black’s Law Dictionary will help you in your legal career? Do you really think you would know anything about felony murder after reading Black’s Law Dictionary?
This comparison is not an isolated event. We stopped doing comparisons with Black’s Law Dictionary after we got even more one-sided results for the top 40 key idiomatic terms used in the law profession and law school.
Black's Law Dictionary has no comparison definitions.
Black’s Law Dictionary has virtually no case cites.
Black’s Law Dictionary has virtually no statutory cites.
We could go on and on and on. Black’s Law Dictionary used to be the best law dictionary you could buy. If you don’t believe us just download a free copy of Dean’s Law Dictionary and use it for free for 3 days. You can verify everything we said as being the absolute truth with no sales puffery. Black’s Law Dictionary is not the best Law Dictionary you can buy.