David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

a number of core courses for graduation,
all of which involved heavy reading
requirements. In those years, however,
one could apply to law school without
completing an undergraduate degree.
Boies simply skipped the core courses.
“I remember when I found out I could go
to law school without graduating,” he
says. “It was so great. I couldn’t believe
it.”
Law school, of course, required even
more reading. But Boies discovered that
there were summaries of the major cases
—guides that would boil down the key
point of a long Supreme Court opinion to
a page or so. “People might tell you
that’s an undesirable way to do law
school,” he says. “But it was