Shae Irving

Well, this book is a good starter for law-knowledge, I can say that much. Much of it seems to be common sense advice, and pointing to other books. By "common sense advice", I mean that I lost count of the number of times a question was answered by reminding people to check the most current laws, check markets before diving head-first into anything big, etc etc. And many questions were answered with "this varies by state/situation, so you should consult (book or website)". I get trying to be show more thorough, but why even put the question in the book if the answer will just be repeating that a dozen times?
Also, *much* of this book is basically just recommendations for other books, often other Nolo books. Giving partial answers and then "more information is available in such-and-such book" is okay every so often, I guess, but not when you end up doing that for 10+ questions per chapter.

Some parts of the book, some "answers", are just too vague to be of much use, at least imo. The section on trademarks touches on the different types of trademarks, but didn't make it clear *why* some things are trademarks while other things are servicemarks. The bankruptcy section states the maximum debt limit for filing Chapter 13, but fails to mention if there is a *minimum* debt amount to qualify... something I would have been very interested to know, due to my own personal financial situation.

I liked the chapter formats and the box-quotes at the beginning of chapters, that quoted famous people about the chapter-subject. I definitely liked all the information about Medicare, basically because I don't know much about it at all and it was very eye-opening. I also like that this book addresses legal concerns specific to gays and lesbians throughout the book, instead of jamming it all together in one chapter like some other law books do.

This is a great starter-book, and some of the information is definitely useful. But the overzealous other-book promoting, and the lack of specifics in some of the chapters, make it less then ideal. show less

This is the first Nolo Press book (of the many I own or have read) to disappoint me. It is so general as to its subject matter and jurisdictions that it cannot address any specific legal matter in a specific place. I liken it to someone undertaking to write a travel guidebook to the entire world. The subject-matter is simply too large to say anything that is meaningful and true for every reader. It would be better to write a series of these books: one per state, one that addresses federal show more law, and perhaps one that covers the Uniform Code of Military Justice. show less

After having looked through this book, I have to wonder if trying to cover law for all 50 US states in 17 subject areas in 500 pages is a reasonable goal. Looking at the bibliographies and references, while they do reference other websites and state law, they consistently reference other Nolo books; it almost feels like a sampler of Nolo books whose goal is to sell you more books.

I fancy that I know something about copyright law, so I started with that section. It struck me as a decent show more high-level coverage, though I noted an ambiguity as to whether all pre-1923 or all American pre-1923 works were in the public domain, comments about copyright renewal with no explanation of what that was (or how complex it might be to show that a work wasn't renewed), and there was a sentence about heirs grabbing copyright back after 35-40 years that didn't even have a footnote to show where one might find more information. Other sections seemed fine, if frequently undetailed.

Overall, it didn't make me ecstatic. But for what is--law for all 50 US states in 17 subject areas in 500 pages--it does well as far as I can tell, and it should give enough information to know whether it's worth getting that Nolo's Guide to My Subject or if you shouldn't worry about it. show less

I read large chunks of this book--some in reaction to things that were going on in my social circles, and some just because I read things if they are sitting there. Since it is an "encyclopedia," the chapters do not really lean on each other. By "everyday law," the book means laws that most ordinary people will have to deal with in their lifetimes, especially aspects of civil law such as family, home buying and leasing, and employment laws. You can almost think of it as "law about life's show more transitions."

The sections I read in which I had more background seemed to be accurate. The treatment of each topic was, due to space constraints, very shallow and did not yield much new information to me. However, each chapter did explain some of the basic concepts and vocabulary that would allow the reader to make more specific queries, and in some cases tables summarized state by state differences or listed the sections of the relevant state codes. When a younger friend just out of college was visiting and telling us about the very small business he was trying to start with two friends, I realized from his questions that this would be a great book for him. It covered basics about small businesses, the house he was renting, his job, etc.

Thus I am going to suggest that this is a great book to give someone between the ages of 15 and 25. It will fill in a lot of the details that age group hasn't picked up on yet. If you are older and more experienced (at least vicariously through your friends), you will probably find it to be less valuable although still probably worth thumbing through at the library. show less