A Textbook Geared For a Class on Constitutional Litigation

December 8th, 2011

This book, titled Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation, looks very useful, and practical:

Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation focuses on the constitutional and statutory doctrines necessary to litigate 4th, 8th, and 14th Amendment claims, and 1st Amendment religion claims that arise in prison. Every chapter places students in roles as practitioners handling simulated law practice problems; provides a doctrinal overview; includes exercises, visual aids, and questions to guide student reading; and includes materials that help students reflect on their professional roles. In addition to Supreme Court decisions, materials include differing circuit court applications of doctrine, jury instructions, oral arguments, briefs, expert reports, and other practical documents. The text provides factual context by including background about the work of prison guards, police, and social workers.

The Teacher’s Manual includes banks of multiple-choice and essay questions and answers, plus teaching guides for exercises and law practice simulations. This casebook is designed to make it easier to implement the ideas in the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers (2007) and Best Practices for Legal Education (2007) by integrating the teaching of doctrine and skills and using multiple methods of instruction.

This book is part of the Context and Practice Series, edited by Michael Hunter Schwartz, Washburn University School of Law.

This is the kind of stuff you don’t learn in ConLaw, Fed Courts, Crim Pro, or any other class. I would’ve loved this class. Here is the TOC.

The Context and Practice Series looks quite good, and they have a Property book. I’ll have to take a look.