Legal Elements

Description:

Legal Methods provides an introduction to, and foundation in, the skills necessary to the professional use of case law and legislation, and to the development of American legal institutions. The course uses an historical focus, based on legal issues relating to workplace safety and products liability. It begins with common law litigation and early 19th century statutes and institutions, then moves through the changes in judicial style, statutory coverage, and the rise of administrative agencies that industrialization prompted. In proceeding from the early 19th century to the greater complexities of the current day, the course explores the sources, forms, and development of law, the analysis and synthesis of judicial precedents, the interpretation of statutes, the coordination of judge-made and statute law, and the uses of legal reasoning. By the time the course ends, a student will have acquired skills essential to her work in other law school classes, an appreciation for the changing styles of legal analysis that American jurists have brought to their work over time, and an awareness of current disputes about the modern role of judges, particularly in relation to the work of legislatures.

Casebook

Peter Strauss, Legal Methods: Understanding and Using Cases and Statutes (2d ed. 2008) (Foundation Press).