Bar Exam: Choosing Basic Textbooks - Constitutional & Administrative Law
Lastly, here is the Constitutional and Administrative Law edition of choosing basic textbooks.
1 My choice this time: Meishoku Kure's "Constitutional Law (Ito Juku Meishoku Kure Basic Book Series)"
Honestly, for Constitutional Law, I decided to make a clean break and go with a "cram school instructor's know-how book" rather than a "legal scholar's book." There were several hardcover textbooks that screamed "I am the Constitution!", but I immediately rejected them based on my personal theory that hardcovers are unnecessary.
The "frame" (framework) of "how to write to form an answer" and "how to handle the scope of judicial precedents" is life. I felt that those who treat it as a "scoring tool" for exam preparation, rather than studying ideology, are the ones who win.
2 My choice this time: Shigeki Nakahara's "Basic Administrative Law" (Nippon Hyoron Sha)
Regarding Administrative Law, this is the absolute champion, to the point where you could say it's the only choice. You can learn the thought process for application step-by-step, working backward from case problems. Along with Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, this completes my lineup from the "Nippon Hyoron Sha Basic Series."
With this, the selection of all basic textbooks is, for now, complete. In the end, it's not about "which one you choose," but "how you use it to the fullest."
No matter how strong a lineup you assemble, it won't earn you a single point just by decorating your bookshelf.
Do you have the resolve to wear them out until they are tattered, drilling them until you can react reflexively in the field?
"Now, the partners are gathered. All that's left is to use them to the absolute limit."
When you combine the 7 basic subjects plus the elective subject, it becomes a large group of 8 subjects in total.
This isn't a gentle world where you carefully nurture one partner; this is now a matter of "party formation (choosing the starting lineup)" — how to assemble these 8 elite members and how to break through the battlefield (the actual exam).
Of course, there are some players who have already been dropped from the starting lineup (Antitrust Law for the elective subject), but that is for the next lecture.