My Property casebook has one major flaw. And it is not that it is 1307 pages long.
Okay, so most law school casebooks have hypos. You learn about a subject, either from a case or from a summary of the law. Then they ask you something like "O conveys Blackacre to A, B, and C as joint tenants . . . . Some other stuff happens . . . . What is the state of title?" In all the other casebooks, the information you need to get it right is in the book. You might have missed it, or didn't understand it, but it's there. Not in Property. Virtually every Hypo can not be answered correctly from the information in the book. There is enough there to make you think you know the answer but it's a lie!
Generally, the professor cold calls on people to answer the hypos so I'm sure the book is intended for the professor to correct the student and then all will be well. But I think it is ridiculous.
Good thing I have four property supplements because generally at least one of them has the information I need to answer the hypo. Of course, that also means I need to read five books for each class that I'm on call for.
Eh. Silly Law School.
As you have probably learned by now, confusion is the first step toward deep learning. See this post: https://info.cooley.edu/blog/the-importance-of-definitions. Stuff you read in Cliff-Notes style supplements is soon forgotten. Material that you master by powering through initial confusion will stick with you.
ReplyDelete