Resources – A Personal Reflection on Law, Learning, and Transparency
By William N. Sosis, Esq.

This page is a curated collection of legal tools, guides, links, and writings. But before you dive into the materials, allow me to be upfront about the spirit behind this section—and why I believe it matters.

I created this page not just as a lawyer, but as someone who recognizes that lawyers were not always the gatekeepers of justice. Long before the bar exam, the JD degree, or the case method at Harvard, people understood and argued their rights without the filter of formalized legal training. Abraham Lincoln never went to law school. Neither did many of the most respected legal minds of the 18th and 19th centuries. In fact, the very idea of a licensed, professional class of lawyers—separated by vocabulary, ceremony, and academic pedigree from the public—emerged in the medieval period, when communities chose advocates to speak for them in church courts and feudal councils.

Over time, what began as a pragmatic need for trained speakers became an entrenched guild. From the Dark Ages to the modern law school, the profession developed its own language, a self-reinforcing authority, and a near-religious commitment to the notion that legal reasoning is somehow beyond the grasp of the average citizen. It is not.

Law is not physics. Law is not engineering. It is not even a science, though many have tried to make it seem like one. The rise of the so-called “case method,” popularized by Harvard Law School in the late 19th century, cloaked legal interpretation in a shroud of scientific pretense. Law students were taught not ethics or justice, but how to reason from precedent, to leap between abstractions, and to avoid moral clarity in favor of procedural rigor. It was a brilliant strategy—not for the public, but for the profession. It made law seem difficult, aloof, and best left to experts.

The truth is less elegant, and perhaps more troubling. Most of modern American law—especially constitutional and administrative law—is rooted not in moral reasoning or natural justice, but in what scholars call “legal positivism”: the idea that law is whatever the state says it is, regardless of whether it is fair, ethical, or humane. That should concern you. Because while the public tends to believe that courts are bastions of morality, equity, and consistent principle, the actual decisions that shape our rights and responsibilities are often volatile, technical, and based on vague principles whose meaning shifts from case to case, and judge to judge.

One of the most striking critiques of this system came in 1939 from Yale Law Professor Fred Rodell, whose book Woe Unto You, Lawyers! skewers the legal profession for its reliance on obscure jargon and self-protective ritual. Rodell argued that lawyers, like medieval priests or tribal shamans, created a system of incantations that the layperson could neither decipher nor challenge. They didn’t just interpret the law—they obscured it. They made themselves necessary by making law unnecessarily complex.

This isn’t just academic history. Today, most people remain entirely unprepared for the legal surprises that life throws at them. Whether it’s a dispute with a landlord, a child custody fight, a data privacy breach, or an encounter with municipal government, the public rarely understands the rules that govern their rights—let alone how those rules are made, changed, or enforced.

That’s why I’ve built this Resources page. It’s a step toward leveling the playing field. The materials here won’t give you a law degree—but they will give you clarity. I’ve included plain-English explanations, legal forms, historical insights, and articles that I believe matter not only to my clients here in New Jersey, but to anyone who wants to understand how law works in the real world.

I should also say this: you may not always agree with my take. I have strong views, and I don’t hide them. I do this not to provoke but to be honest—because I believe my clients and readers deserve transparency, even when they disagree with me. In a profession that too often hides behind privilege and pretense, I aim to do the opposite. And if you ever feel I’ve gotten something wrong, you’re more than welcome to tell me so. I believe in dialogue, not dogma.

So welcome to the Resources page. Use it. Question it. Share it. And most of all, don’t be afraid to think like a lawyer—because law was never meant to be off-limits.

References

• Rodell, Fred. Woe Unto You, Lawyers! A Lusty, Gusty Attack on "The Law" as a Curious, Antiquated Institution. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939.
• U.S. Constitution, Amendment V and XIV.
• Holmes, Oliver Wendell Jr. “The Path of the Law.” Harvard Law Review, vol. 10, no. 8, 1897, pp. 457–478.
• Gilmore, Grant. The Ages of American Law. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
• Llewellyn, Karl N. The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study. New York: Columbia University Law School, 1930.
• Duncan Kennedy, “Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System.” Journal of Legal Education, vol. 32, 1982, pp. 591–615.
• Harvard Law School. “The Case Method Teaching.” https://hls.harvard.edu
• Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co., 1833.
• U.S. Supreme Court. Senior v. Braden, 295 U.S. 422 (1935).
• McCloskey, Robert G. The American Supreme Court. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.