Lawrence Cunningham muses on Contract law case books:
I’ve become aware of the current rich state of offerings in the field of Contracts. Never before have there been so many choices. Today, you have more than 20 books to choose from, all rich, up-to-date, teeming with wonderful old cases common across the batch, plus newer favorites and novelties.
He then ranks the top 17 books according to their Amazon sales data.
As a case book author, I was interested by Cunningham's description of why he thinks Contract law case books are so great:
The books are replete with notes, questions and comments, scholarly excerpts, problems, statutory and restatement selections, interdisciplinary perspectives and more. ...
Today’s editors all owe debts to earlier editors, but it would be a mistake to think that the greatest debts are to Langdell, father of the casebook, or even Williston or Corbin, who picked the best cases of the period, still taught today. The greatest debt really goes to Fuller, who should be seen as the father of today’s modern casebook, in contracts and other subjects. He added extensive notes, perfected the use of the squib cases, offered interdisciplinary and comparative insights, understood the importance of statutory and regulatory law alongside the common law, stressed the teaching of skills in addition to the study of doctrine and did nearly everything else that contemporary legal pedagogy endorses.
If those are the indicia of a great case book, Klein, Ramseyer, and Bainbridge fails pretty miserably. Extensive notes? We don't have them. Squib cases? Don't have them either. Interdisciplinary and comparative insights? Nope. Scholarly excerpts? Definitely not.
All we have are tightly edited cases, some analysis questions, and some problems designed to get people thinking about transactional skill issues. Since we're all oriented towards transactional practice, we try to makes sure that the questions and problems not only challenge the students to review and apply the law they have learned but also to tackle the business problems that gave rise to the cases they read.
Curiously, however, we're ranked # 1 on Amazon. So we must be doing something right.
I think part of our advantage is an incredibly detailed teacher's manual, which often features three way arguments about the cases. Many adopters have told me the case briefs in which the three of us disagree are the most useful, because it helps them sort out their own views of the case.
Another advantage might be our plethora of PowerPoint slides that we make available free to adopters.
Personally, however, I think our biggest advantage is that we put our case book on a diet. We kept it lean and clean. So assignments are a manageable length, which increases the chances students will actually read them. The cases mostly speak for themselves, letting users put their own spin on them.
In other words, I think our case book succeeds precisely because it doesn't have all the crap Cunningham thinks makes Contract case books so wonderful.
I have always thought it odd a law student can get an "A" in contracts, graduate and pass the bar, without ever even seeing a sample contract.
There is nothing more dangerous than a rookie lawyer.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt | 01/17/2011 at 07:25 PM
Amazon also ranks the Choi & Pritchard Securities Regulation casebook at #1 in the field of Securities. Perhaps not coincidentally, that book follows the KRB model--tightly edited, clear and concise discussion, analysis questions, and easy to grasp hypotheticals. And of course, PP slides and a comprehensive TM available to adopters.
Posted by: Adam Pritchard | 01/18/2011 at 09:09 AM
I'd like to suggest that what makes a good core-course 1L book is substantially different from what makes a good intermediate or advanced book for law electives (even if I think EVERY lawyer needs to take BizOrgs and at least one course on securities).
Bluntly, a 1L needs a lot more handholding and unteaching than does a student who has survived the entire first year. And frankly, things change an awful lot faster in those upper-level course areas than they do in the 1L gut, which further argues for a less-"inclusive" book in the less-basic courses.
I used a predecessor of KRB (without the B... as of yet) for BizOrgs many years ago and found it as eminently satisfactory for that subject matter as I did LaFave for Crim Pro (which is probably the epitome of the approach Cunningham advocates). In short, CONTEXT MATTERS.
Posted by: C.E. Petit | 01/18/2011 at 02:53 PM
I happen to think that the most important thing a book can do that is used to teach new students is to stay focused, focused, focused. I happen to think that the majority of case books fail miserably in this regard. Squib cases? Superficial excerpts from scholarly literature? Is that really the best route to learning? I don't think so. I think the best route to learning is to have a tight and focused discussion, not tons of superficial excerpts that create a confusing and for students sometimes overwhelming cacophony.
What case books could really use is depth and a focused narrative. I already dislike the "case method" in the sense that it encourages this cacophony instead of more focused writing.
One reason you have "more than 20 books" to choose from is partially because "writing" case books that consist mostly of excerpts of the writing of others takes much less skill and talent than writing a really good textbook that is tight, focused, and actually enjoyable to read would.
Another pet peeve of mine is the lazy tendency of some professors to think that "more reading" is somehow equivalent to more learning. What about actually thinking? Isn't a student's own thinking and engagement with the material ultimately the most important part of the learning process which will actually be usefully retained not only for the class itself, but into the future? I have a strong opinion to the effect that long readings with tons of "squibs" and superficial excerpts will tend to be forgotten quite soon after the class is over, since there is little time to really engage intellectually with the material when so much reading is assigned. Ultimately, I think that the trend of overly long reading assignments will continue, because it is probably much easier to just throw a lot of reading at the students than to think in-depth and carefully about how to create greater engagement with the material with more focused expositions.
Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the Klein, Ramseyer, and Bainbridge casebook (although I did have Ramseyer as a professor), so I am unaware of whether the deficiencies that are so common with casebooks plague it as well. But when I hear Professor Bainbridge's description, I like what I hear because it sounds as though they keep their book much more focused than their competitors.
Posted by: David Welker | 01/19/2011 at 08:43 AM
To be clear, in my post, I did not advocate any approach; was describing what Contracts casebooks currently do and where that comes from; and offered no opinion on what counts towards greatness or having high sales. It may be paper quality and margin width as much as other factors! My own Corporations casebook, taken over from Larry Soderquist, is essentially all cases, very Langdellian, even less cluttered than KRB's. Whether one's work qualifies as "tightly edited" and "clear and concise," morever, seems best judged by others!
Posted by: Lawrence Cunningham | 01/19/2011 at 08:50 AM