High-quality legal pads seem to be everywhere. They come in a wide variety of colors, sizes, and paper thicknesses, but the best legal pads for writers, lawyers, accounts, and other professionals is the one that works the best for your own business.
The quality needs to be high enough to prevent ink from sinking through or from pages falling out of the notepad. The best notepads come with thick paper and firm lines for legible and complete writing.
What are the Top Legal Pads?
Top 10 Legal Pads on the Market Today:
1. AmazonBasics Legal/Wide Ruled 8-1/2 by 11-3/4 Legal Pad
Review
The AmazonBasics Legal/Wide Ruled 8-1/2 by 11-3/4 Legal Pad is legal is a 12-pack offer to keep you writing and ready when you run out of lines.
The AmazonBasics legal pad is perfect for all sorts of work as it is a law ruled pad; it is ideal for taking notes about clients or keeping track of the job interview notes you take or to capture the notes from each daily or weekly meeting.
The notepads are good for making lists or planning a lecture. They are for the office worker and the student for their versatility.
The wide-ruled paper is also good for children who are learning their letters with plenty of room to see what they are doing.
There is also enough room in the margins for notes to be made by teachers and parents for the quality of the work produced.
- The AmazonBasics notepad is wide ruled for easy reading.
- The Amazonbasics notepad is perforated to remove pages easily.
- The notepad has sturdy cardboard backing to ensure a harder writing surface.
- The paper can be too thin for some users.
- The cardboard back could be more firm.
2. TOPS The Legal Pad Writing Pads
Review
The TOPS The Legal Pad Writing Pads are smooth and a long-time reliable brand for legal pads. They are convenient enough to use daily without worry about them falling apart.
Each sheet of the notepad is perforated to take notes and keep the notes of each day organized.
The yellow legal writing pads from TOPS are canary yellow and made in the United States. They are a classic writing pad used by attorneys and students for notes and lists.
They are legal pads that are the traditional legal size of 8-1/2 x 14 and 8-1/2″ x 11-3/4″ to fit easily in smaller briefcases or with your laptop computer or tablet.
- The TOPS legal pads are perforated to organize notes easily.
- The TOPS legal pads are thick enough to prevent the transfer of ink to additional pages.
- The legal pad have a firm enough back to write on, but not too firm that pages easily tear off.
- The perforation is underneath the cardboard top.
3. TOPS Prism+ Writing Pads, 5x 8, Perforated, Jr. Legal Ruled
Review
The TOPS Prism+ Writing Pads is a multi-pack of pastel colors, including blue, purple, and pink. The color-coding helps keep clients’ notes together, or class notes all in one place.
They are practical ways to stay organized and keep your lists all in the same place, and they are just cute colored legal pads.
The Jr. TOPS legal pads are a smaller version of the traditional legal pad. They are 5″ x 8″, which is the perfect size for quick note-taking and for keeping track of your grocery list.
They are Prism+ pages, which makes your writing smooth. They are also one hundred percent recycled fibers, with thirty percent being post-consumer fibers.
- The Jr. TOPS legal pads are one hundred percent recycled.
- The legal pads come in three different colors to keep things organized.
- The Jr. Tops Legal pads are perforated to help keep things organized.
- The colors could be brighter.
- The paper could also be thicker.
4. Mead Canary Legal Pads
Review
The Mead Canary Legal Pads are the bright 15# canary yellow legal pad. They are wide ruled for complete note-taking with an extra smooth writing surface.
Each legal pad has fifty perforated sheets that make organization easy.
The sheets are made to make page-turning easy with the top header following horizontally to the other side. The reverse side is identical without the header is at the bottom if you turn it over.
The paper is thick enough that ink does not soak through and is the best legal pad for fountain pens for this reason.
The mead packet has three legal pads in the pack, making it a very cost-effective way to get quality notepads for all your college classes. There are similar potions to order six, nine, and twelve-packs as well.
- The ink does not soak through the pages.
- The sheet header goes over the page top, making page-turning easier.
- The pages are bright canary yellow.
- The pages can be thicker.
- The pages could tear off easier.
5. Ampad 20245 Double Sheets Pad
Review
The Ampad 20245 Double Sheets Pad is a canary yellow legal pad. It has a larger than average margin measuring 3″ into the left side of the legal pad making columns easy to draw and notes to take on both sides of the margin line.
The Ampad is hole-punched to make it easier to stick them in binders with legal pads 100 sheets pages available for writing on.
The legal pad is ten percent recycled fibers with ten percent post-consumer fibers with an SFI Certification to be free of acid.
The notepad has micro-perforation at the top of the notepad to make page remove easy.
The perforation is strong, so pages will not lose easily. The sturdy cardboard backing helps told the notepad together strongly.
- The Ampad has 3″ margins for large note-taking.
- The Ampad is SFI certified and Acid-free.
- The legal pad is canary yellow.
- The paper could be thicker.
- The lines on the bad could be thicker.
6. Gold Fibre Retro Pad
Review
The Gold Fibre Retro Pad is a high-quality note-taking pad. It has a wire binding with a sold brown cover to protect the notes you take.
It is ideal for using legal pads for productivity with seventy pages available for your client’s case.
The notepad is a wide rule with rounded corners to prevent them from becoming crumpled as you turn the pages. The pages are thick, with firm lines across the page with a very professional look to the notepad.
The paper also is multi-functional with grid lines on the back for drawing diagrams or doing calculations.
The color of the notepad is not the traditional canary yellow color, but muted beige. The color of the paper matches the more muted burgundy cardboard cover, giving the entire notepad a look of elegance and quality.
- The Gold Fibre Retro Pad has lines and grid lines of complete note-taking.
- The notepad has rounded corners to prevent crumpling.
- The notepad is bound in wire to prevent the pages from easily falling out.
- The wire could be larger.
- The notepad lines are not numbered.
7. Ultimate Legal Pad 3 PACK
Review
The Ultimate Legal Pad 3 PACK is more than just taking notes on legal pad paper. The Ultimate legal pad has each page labeled with information about the file the page will be attached to, the date, what the paper if for phone calls, to-do list, meeting, or other.
There is also a place to list all the people participating in the event and what the event is about.
The ultimate legal has quality lines down the page with a small section at the bottom of each page for the next steps to the meeting, follow updates, and the time recorded for the meeting.
It is a notepad that is pre-numbered with key summary sections for all important notes.
The notepad is made of premium quality paper with twenty-four-pound thickness. Each notepad has fifty sheets of paper that are smooth and even with holes already punched to make filing the notes simple when interviews or meetings are completed.
- The Ultimate notepad has pre-made sections for all-important meeting information.
- The Ultimate notepad has twenty-four-pound paper making it very heavy and durable.
- The notepad comes with pre-punched holes for filing.
- The notepad is not cost-effective.
- The notepad is not college ruled.
8. Cambridge Writing Pads
Review
The Cambridge Writing Pads are small legal pads measuring only 6″ X 9″ with one hundred-forty sheet to write on. The notepad is compact and easy to carry in your briefcase or your backpack. The Cambridge series of notepads are made for heavy-duty use.
The notepad is made with wide rule paper with each sheet tinted a beige color to give the paper a more elegant look to match the solid black top protective cover.
The notepad has a firm margin on the left side of the notepad with thick lines running across the page, making taking notes in your meeting easy and convenient.
The paper of the notepad is smooth and thick to prevent it from falling apart through use and activity. It has very firm cardboard back to give the entire notepad a book-like appearance with the spiral of wire running across the top, making it more elegant.
- The Cambridge Writing Pad has one hundred forty pages in each pad.
- The writing pad has thick, smooth paper, which prevents ink from soaking through the pages.
- The pad is not white, so it will not show the marks of use as much.
- The notepad is not cost-effective.
- The notepad is not full-sized.
9. Business Source Micro-Perforated Legal Ruled Pads
Review
The Business Source Micro-Perforated Legal Ruled Pads come in two different shades: white and yellow. The notepads also come in two different sizes: junior and legal.
The multi-pack is a good option for cost-effectively growing your business as the package comes in a pack of twelve, with each notepad having fifty pages.
The Business Source Micro-Perforated pads are easy to remove from the back of the cardboard backing for filing. The back is also sturdy enough to use a writing surface for complete note-taking legibility.
The paper is also sixteen-pound paper making it sturdy enough to survive to carry around to meetings with steps across the top to securely hold the entire notepad.
Each page is the legal size with wide rule lines for complete note-taking.
- The Business notepad has a thirty point chipboard backing for secure writing.
- The Business notepad is legal-wide rule note pages.
- The Notepad has micro-perforation across the top.
- The pages can shred as you remove the top pages.
- The notepad only comes in canary yellow or white.
10. Levenger Freeleaf Yellow Annotation Ruled Pads
Review
The Levenger Freeleaf Yellow Annotation Ruled Pads are top-quality notepads with each of the fifty sheets proven to be acid-free in their making.
The pages are annotated with a ¼ inch rule formatting on the left of the notepad for quick notes about your notes.
Each Leverger Freeleaf yellow notepad has pre-printed rectangles across to fill in an important meeting, time, and participant information.
The organization of the pages makes them a perfect tool for the law office or accounting firm. The pages come perforated along with the top edge of each page to make filing the pages easier after each meeting.
The pages are a light shade of yellow with lines printed with gray ink to be easier on the eyes. The pages are thick and heavy, which makes them a long-lasting option for all types of work notes. The cardstock used on the back makes it easy to write on without the ink going through the pages.
- The Levenger Freeleaf Yellow pad comes with pre-printed important meeting boxes.
- The pages use a gray ink for the lines to be easier on the eyes.
- The Levenger Freeleaf Yellow pad has a large side section for notes about notes.
- The notepads are not cost-effective
- The pages might be too slick for some ink.
Final Thoughts
Choosing a top product for a legal pad is surprisingly difficult. The best legal pads for lawyers would be either the Gold Fibre Retro Pad or the Levenger Freeleaf Yellow Annotation Ruled Pad as it comes ready to note dates, times, participants, and other important meeting information.
While these are amazing things to have for all people regardless of profession, the best US legal pads are the Ultimate Legal Pad.
The Ultimate Legal Pad is the basic canary yellow legal notepad in its most basic form. It has not ornamentation because it doesn’t need it, and it is tough enough to take note of for months without pages getting torn or lost. It is also the most cost-effective way to get quality notepads for your office