The legal dictionary is an invaluable reference work for all law students. It gives them a thorough understanding of legal language and ensures that they are familiar with phrases they will come across during their studies. The law dictionary provides substantial entries on core student topics that explain the conceptual significance of key regions, giving students an understanding of how these terms have been created, and in turn shape, how attorneys think.
The following are the best-selling law dictionaries worldwide on Amazon, beginning with the most popular. This article aims to introduce these dictionaries to the uninitiated students of law and help them in choosing the one that suits their needs the most.
1. Dictionary of Law by Merriam-Webster
This is a handy, complete handbook of the language of the law for the general public as well as the practicing lawyer. More than 10,000 legal terms and phrases are included. Many of the new entries are based on current events that have driven legal concepts into our everyday lives, such as the financial crisis and the rise of the Internet. Pronunciations, example phrases, quotations, and frequent supplements are included in this guide. The book also includes parts on the judicial system, major legal cases, government organizations, and historic laws. Merriam-Webster has been America’s leading and most trusted source of linguistic information for more than 150 years and is backed by the country’s largest and one of the world’s largest teams of professional dictionary editors and authors. This book is available on Amazon.com for $14.69 in paperback form.
2. Black’s Law dictionary by Bryan A. Garner
Black’s Law Dictionary has been the gold standard for legal jargon for nearly 130 years. The considerably expanded 11thedition is the most practical, comprehensive, scholarly, and authoritative law dictionary ever published, with new material on every page. It defines over 55,000 law-related words and phrases with clarity and precision, reflecting their historical and current subtleties.
The rich bibliography of the book provides over 1,000 legal classics that are briefly mentioned throughout the dictionary to help the user better comprehend legal language. Each of the almost 6,000 quotations includes a critical and otherwise difficult-to-find definition of the terms in question. The Hardcover version is $135.79 on Amazon.
3. Dictionary of Legal Terms: Definitions and Explanations for Non-Lawyers by Steven H. Gifis
Over 2,500 terms are defined in plain, easy-to-understand English, and are translated for the common man to understand. The revised edition incorporates new words to reflect current legislative and judicial changes. This handy pocket booklet is great for quick reference or learning more about the law. It contains definitions and explanations that are free of jargon. There are also hundreds of examples to help you understand the terminology. This handy handbook cuts through the legal lingo and is perfect for consumers, business owners, legal beneficiaries, investors, property owners, litigants, and anybody else who deals with the law. The paperback edition amounts at $10.29 currently on Amazon, and the e-textbook is $7.70
4. Master Legal Vocabulary & Terminology by Marc Roche
This book provides an organized framework for law students, lawyers, and other legal professionals to greatly improve their legal language and terminology understanding. This book will guide you through the main vocabulary and grammar structures found in commercial contracts, and you will have the opportunity to practice them through highly targeted vocabulary and grammar activities aimed at improving your lexical and grammatical skills and build your confidence as well as overall competence. A short glossary with all the important terminology of contract law and legal vocabulary in English, as well as a phrasal verb mini-dictionary with definitions and activities to polish your grasp of this area of English, can be found near the end of the book. The book’s final section provides an incredible collection of 425 legal templates to help you construct contracts, letters, affidavits, and a variety of other documents.
5. Oran’s Dictionary of the Law by Daniel Oran
Oran’s Dictionary of the Law is probably the most user-friendly introduction to legal vocabulary and concepts on this list. It includes clear definitions of terms that most paralegals, paralegal students, and those in related fields should be familiar with. The reader will learn the fundamentals of each legal concept and will gain a better understanding of the American legal system as well as how to approach research projects. Contracts, laws, court decisions, and lawyers are all explained in detail in this book. The new fourth edition available on Amazon for $63.95 paperback, includes a CD-ROM containing all of the book’s terms and meanings, as well as over 1,000 new and revised definitions. It also includes apart on bankruptcy, intellectual property, litigation support, national security, and other quickly evolving topic areas, as well as an updated section on computerized legal research.
6. McGraw-Hill’s Spanish and English Legal Dictionary by Henry Saint Dahl
Hundreds of words in commercial law, civil and criminal law, contracts and torts, constitutional law, family law, labor law, liability, probate, property law, and international trade agreements are defined in McGraw-Spanish Hill’s and English Legal Dictionary. More than 13000 entries are included in both Spanish and English. The extensive collection of encyclopedic entries in this fully bilingual dictionary, including citations of judgments, torts, and contracts, as well as civil, penal, and commercial codes from the United States, Spain, and Spanish-speaking countries around the world sets it apart from the competition. It also includes dozens of sample claims, invoices, and other legal papers that may be compared side by side. This handy guide is meant to assist anyone who needs to comprehend legal concerns across the linguistic and cultural differences between Spanish and English.
7. Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage by Bryan A. Garner
This book organizes and analyses modern legal terminology in greater depth than any other contemporary reference work. The new Third Edition of this book currently available at Amazon for only $40.45 paperback, updates numerous entries, adds dozens of new entries and hundreds of new sections within existing entries, adds hundreds of new illustrative quotations from judicial opinions and leading law books by prominent legal commentators, revises the selected bibliography, and expands and updates cross-references to quickly and easily guide readers. This book is used by influential writers and editors on a daily basis. It’s a must-have for practicing lawyers, legal researchers, and libraries of all kinds and types. This book serves as both a style guide and a law dictionary, assisting authors in distinguishing between actual legal terms and jargon, as well as displaying suggested styles of expression. Common errors are described in such a way that writers will be discouraged from repeating them.
8. An English-Spanish Dictionary of Criminal Law and Procedure by Sandro Tomasi
This book is the most authoritative work in its field, and it offers translations and definitions of common legal terminology and idioms used in the United States. It is the first legal lexicography to contain translations based on Latin America’s recent criminal procedure law revisions. Every term, expression, and meaning is based on statutory law, case law, scholarly works, and monolingual legal dictionaries. This one-of-a-kind bilingual law dictionary includes lexical and legal comments, examples of target-language laws, comparisons of similar terms and concepts, synonyms, abbreviations, translation pitfalls explained, translation examples in context, related terms, cross-references, and legal citations, among other useful explanatory and contextual elements. In addition, about 1,100 entries and their single or multiple equivalents are displayed in a simple and intuitively intuitive fashion. The book is available for $35.00 here:
9. Sheppards Bouvier: Law Dictionary by Stephen M. Sheppard
It is the first complete rewrite of John Bouvier’s renowned law dictionary in over a century, updated to be relevant and authoritative for today’s law students. Steve Sheppard, uses his scholarship, international practice, and litigation expertise to make the classic text as relevant now as it was when it was first published in the United States. The reference book’s depth and authority are obtained from definitions derived from both contemporary and classic sources. Professor Sheppard has added thousands of new concepts and updated many original meanings, building on Bouvier’s framework and entries.
More than 11,200 terms and phrases are explained in 8,500 powerful, paragraph-length entries, significantly more than the original two-volume set of 6,600. Each entry is written in a way that a modern student can understand, a modern lawyer can make arguments with it, and a modern judge can make citing of it. The paperback edition of this book is sold on Amazon at $46.95.
10. The Essential English/Spanish and Spanish/English Legal Dictionary by Steven Kaplan
The latest edition of this book is based on the popular Fourth Edition of the same book which contains about 75,000 entries covering all disciplines of law as well as relevant words in allied fields of competence. Since the First Edition was published in 1993, lawyers, law students, translators, and individuals working in English and Spanish in law and related sectors have relied on these dictionaries. The Essential English/Spanish and Spanish/English Legal Dictionary has no particular guidelines or suggestions for optimal use because of its plain and naturally intuitive structure. Users just look up a word or phrase, obtain the definition, and get back to work on their legal documents. The dictionary’s overall layout is simple to read, making it easy to find the terms and equivalents with the least amount of time and effort. It’s a must-have for school, home, and the office because of the compact paperback format, available on Amazon for only $65.77.
