Too busy writing those briefs and petitioning for those writs, so haven’t found the time to hit your local store or the interwebs and fulfill your seasonal duties? Or maybe you just have gifter’s block this holiday season about an appropriate present for the dirt lawyer in your life?
You want to be known as a a good gifter, not a grifter.
Fear not, friend. Here’s our annual Holiday Dirt Lawyer Gift Guide, with our suggestions for things that could make the DL in your life happy. Some serious, some cheeky. You figure out which applies.
Let’s go!
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Bespoke Property Rights Rickroll Mug.
We’ll start with a new entry, one that is sure to become a favorite. We’re not quite sure what to call it, so we’ve settled on “Property Rights Rickroll Mug.”
For those of you who remember, fondly or otherwise, the “Rickroll” thing.
These are truly bespoke items, and are not generally available.
But what gift could better demonstrate for the dirt lawyer in your life how much you care than a custom, one-of-a-kind mug? “World’s Best Dad!” Bah, humbug. Rick definitely rolls.
If an early ‘aughts meme of a 1980’s pop hit isn’t quite appropriate for your giftee, you might consider these graphics for your bespoke dirt lawyer mug:
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SCOTUS Origami Boulders.
Next up on our list is an old favorite.
Charlie Brown may have received a a bag of rocks for Halloween, but you are better than that. You know that SCOTUS origami boulders, handcrafted with love from print-outs of important Supreme Court takings cases, are a sure-fire hit.
In addition to being environmentally friendly, these are also good for the procrastinators out there, since you don’t need an open store or free Prime delivery to show your recipient just how much you care.
Rescue a few pages from the blue bin, and you are in business. Won’t cost a lot of quatloos, either.
No Martha Stewart skills necessary. Save the environment while giving the most thoughtful of gifts. Just crumple and go!
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Eric C. Claeys, Natural Property Rights (Cambridge U. Press 2025).
If balled-up pages of SCOTUS takings cases isn’t your thing, you might try this, a copy of the eagerly-anticipated and recently-published book that is sure to light your dirt lawyer’s fire: Professor Eric R. Claeys, Natural Property Rights (Cambridge U. Press 2025).
Here’s the description:
Natural Property Rights presents a novel theory of property based on individual, pre-political rights. The book argues that a just system of property protects people’s rights to use resources and also orders those rights consistent with natural law and the public welfare. Drawing on influential property theorists such as Grotius, Locke, Blackstone, and early American statesmen and judges, as well as recent work in in normative and analytical philosophy, the book shows how natural rights guide political and legal reasoning about property law. It examines how natural rights justify the most familiar institutions in property, including public property, ownership, the system of estates and future interests, leases, servitudes, mortgages, police regulation, and eminent domain. Thought-provoking and comprehensive, the book challenges leading contemporary justifications for property and shows how property both secures individual freedom and serves the common good.
We can recommend this one personally. Grotius, Blackstone, Locke, von Pufendorf … and more! Perfect for curling up by the fire on a cold winter’s night.
Available here from Cambridge, or elsewhere for slightly less.
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Hess Triangle T-Shirt.
Next consider this classic , a Hess Triangle t-shirt, available from Brooklyn Streetworks.
No no true dirt lawyer could resist this classy depiction of the smallest piece of private real estate in New York. Own your own piece of the Big Apple.
True mavens know this one, and donning this shibboleth is a sign to others in the know that you know your stuff; a “secret handshake” of sorts to kindred spirits.
“Never been dedicated to public use?”
Show ’em who’s boss! Announce to the world your outlook on life, and the way you do business.
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James C. Burling, Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis (2024).
Next up, a more recent entry (last year was the first time on the list): Jim Burling’s tour-de-force book, “Nowhere to Live: the Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis” (2024).
Turn the NIMBYs and CAVE’s in your life into YIMBYs!
After all, who could resist a book that promises to take “readers through the history of how we got [to the housing crisis]. With stories going back to the Civil War, the early twentieth century, and the ill-fated’ ‘urban renewal’ movement of the 1950s, Nowhere to Live reveals how the government layered mistake upon mistake to create the current crisis. It also provides a way out: not by government fiat, but through the restoration of private property rights.”
Not us, brothers and sisters!
Heck, we recommend getting several copies and handing ’em out to all your giftees. A perfect stocking stuffer.
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Sara C. Bronin, Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes our World (2024).
Continuing on with the zoning book theme is Professor Sara Bronin’s book, “Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World“ (2024).
This one is not really a criticism of zoning, but more like what we’d call a “love letter” to zoning, if only we would do it right.
The land user on your holiday gift list would surely love a book thusly described:
In Key to the City, legal scholar and architect Sara C. Bronin examines how zoning became such a prevailing force and reveals its impact—and its potential for good. Outdated zoning codes have maintained racial segregation, prioritized cars over people, and enabled great ecological harm. But, as Bronin argues, once we recognize the power of zoning, we can harness it to create the communities we desire, and deserve. Drawing on her own experience leading the overhaul of Hartford’s zoning code and exploring the efforts of activists and city planners across the country, Bronin shows how new codes are reshaping our cities—from Baltimore to Chicago, Las Vegas to Minneapolis, and beyond. In Boston, a law fought for by a passionate group of organizers, farmers, and beekeepers is transforming the city into a haven for urban farming. In Tucson, zoning codes are mitigating the impacts of climate change and drought-proofing neighborhoods in peril. In Delray Beach, Florida, a new code aims to capture and maintain the town’s colorful spirit through its architecture.
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Eminent Domain Wines.
Next up is a classic item that has been on the list since its inception.
A multiple repeat entry on our holiday list because there’s no way that your condemnation lawyer won’t love this: wines from Oregon’s Eminent Domaine vintner.
From their web site:
The name, Eminent Domaine, is a reflection of our experience with the legal term, eminent domain, our dedication to the Oregon wine industry and our love of the wines produced in our region. In 2002 the City of Portland cited eminent domain as reason for claiming an office building we owned downtown. We began negotiations, as we agreed with the intent of the law, which states that the property would be used for the public good in exchange for a price based on fair market value. However, when both qualifiers came into question, a lengthy legal process ensued. Despite having a more favorable outcome from arbitration, the compensation was low and the property was used for undisclosed purposes. Having been brought up on a small farm in Hillsboro Oregon, Jeff Meader always wanted to go back to the land. Already entrenched in Oregon’s wine industry and looking to the future, it was a natural progression to re-invest in a small piece of land in the coveted Ribbon Ridge AVA. In 2009, we set about planting the 7-acre parcel with selected Pinot Noir clones and harvested our first estate fruit in 2011.
Hurry down the chimney, Santa!
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Robert C. Ellickson, America’s Frozen Neighborhoods: The Abuse of Zoning (2022).
If you prefer a more academic (but nonetheless highly readable) examination and analysis of where zoning has gone wrong, check out lawprof Robert Ellickson’s “America’s Frozen Neighborhoods: The Abuse of Zoning” (2022):
In this book, Robert Ellickson asserts that local zoning policies are the most consequential regulatory program in the United States. Many localities have created barriers to the development of less costly forms of housing. Numerous economists have found that current zoning practices inflict major damage on the national economy. Using Silicon Valley, the Greater New Haven, Connecticut, area, and the northwestern portion of Greater Austin, Texas, as case studies, Ellickson shows in unprecedented detail how the zoning system works and recommends steps for its reform.
Zoning regulations, Ellickson demonstrates, are hard to dislodge once localities have enacted them. He develops metrics to measure the existence and costs of exclusionary zoning, and suggests reforms that states and the federal government could undertake to counter the detrimental effects of local policies. These include the cartelization of housing markets and the aggravation of racial and class segregation.
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Bundles of Sticks (multiple versions and sources).
When your giftee won’t be satisfied with a von Pufendorfian metaphor, but will only settle for the real thing.
In the “bundles of sticks” department, you have many choices.
Starting with the environmentally-friendly (and frugal) option.
Another classic, sure to put a smile on your dirt lawyer’s face. Show ’em how much you appreciate their expertise and skill with this “insiders” gift. No one else will get it, but they will.
Best of all is that these are out there for the taking (no just compensation required), just waiting for you to pick them up. (Also handy for starting up your Yule Log.)
Go on, you know you want to.
If that’s too literal (or frugal), consider our next entry where, for a mere 10 simoleons (plus shipping), you can give a present that every property lawyer will “get,” pick up sticks. (I understood that reference.)
In case you can’t quite figure it out: “This simple yet classic game hones hand-eye coordination and helps develop a child’s [and your lawyer’s] fine motor skills. The game consists of 41 thin wooden sticks in assorted colors, each measuring 9.5-inches long.“
Gather your right to exclude, your right to make economically productive use, your right to gift or sell (inter vivos or causa mortis), your right to interest-following-principal, and pick ’em up and tie ’em in a bundle.
What’s in the box? Not Grotius. A bundle of sticks!
Finally, if even $10 is a bit too spendy for your tastes, you can go even more downmarket yet keep the same theme, with these “batons” from your local Trader Joe’s).
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Bernard Siegan, Land Use Without Zoning (2020 ed.)
Back to books. Yet another classic: A reissue of Professor Bernard Siegan’s “Land Use Without Zoning” (2020 ed.).
Timely and timeless.
What property lawyer or land user wouldn’t be happy to find this on his or her table on a cold December morning?
“In his pioneering 1972 study, Land Use Without Zoning, Bernard Siegan first set out what has today emerged as a commonsense perspective: Zoning not only fails to achieve its stated ends of ordering urban growth and separating incompatible uses, it also drives housing costs up and competition down. . . . Siegan demonstrates how land use will naturally regulate itself in a nonzoned environment.”
Good book, and much cheaper than a flight to Houston.
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Eminent Domain (Triumph Releasing 1990).
A film buff on your list? Already gave ’em The Castle, Little Pink House, and Battle For Brooklyn?
Well fear not, may we suggest “Eminent Domain” (1990).
The description, however, does not make it sound like a property-related movie:
The film is based on the true story of a senior member of the Polish Politburo (played by Donald Sutherland) and his wife (played by Anne Archer) who are both abruptly banished from the party. While they struggle to figure out why, having unusual encounters with people they do not know in the process, things start to take a darker turn when the wife is sent to a mental asylum and their 15-year-old daughter is kidnapped.”
But hey, the title wouldn’t lie, would it?
Available here. VHS only. Old School.
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Bag of Dirt.
Want to go super-literal (or maybe really, really meta)? How about an actual bag of dirt?
That’s right, for a mere $15 USD, you can get a bag of Readi-SOIL RSAPVB-8 All Purpose Vegetable Blend Total Organic Soil Remedy. Straight from Tractor Supply Company.
As described by the seller, “a naturally perfect blend of our own, site-managed worm castings combined with distinctly homorganic deep woods peat moss, resulting in the perfect planting soil.”
What dirt lawyer could not love actual dirt?
Beats a bag of rocks, Charlie Brown!
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M. Nolan Gray, Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It (2022).
Is someone in your life constantly muttering “zoning sucks!?“
If so, then all your gifting problems are solved with a copy of M. Nolan Grey’s book “Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It” (Island Press 2022), which is a somewhat recent addition to the list. But it has become a classic.
Yes, it has been around for a couple of years, but even if your recipient is not a dyed-in-the-wool YIMBY zoning skeptic, this book will still make a great gift because it is an accessible summary of what zoning is and what it isn’t and isn’t simply a polemic, but a thoughtful laying out of why the author (a former planner for New York City) believes that zoning’s time is up. The book also offers solutions for what might replace zoning (Houston, we’re looking at you).
Besides, it will give the recipient all the information needed to bring up zoning and bolster her arguments for abolishing or overruling Euclid at the holiday dinner table with relatives.
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Bryan Caplan and Ady Branzei, Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation (2024).
And if you want a funner approach, check out this graphic study, by Bryan Caplan and Ady Branzei, “Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation” (2024):
“Combining visually stunning graphics and careful interdisciplinary research, Build, Baby, Build, takes readers on a journey through what is wrong with housing regulations—and what we can do about it.”
Graphic novel? We’re eagerly anticipating the “300” style motion picture. “This is ZONING!“
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Lump of Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal.
We end with the classic lump of coal.
But in our case a lump of Pennsylvania Coal (I see what you did there).
Anthracite, not bituminous, of course.
Usually, finding a lump of coal in one’s stocking results in a long face, but there’s not a dirt lawyer out there who would be unhappy receiving this one.
But let’s say you don’t live in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, and thus do not have ready access to coal-in-the-wild? Well, you are in luck: the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton has a store, and you can have it shipped.
If it is too late for that, there’s always a rock and some glossy black paint from your local hardware store. Just sayin.’
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Well, that’s it for our 2025 list. Happy gifting.
Let’s hope you get something great in your stocking.
Happy holidays, everyone.