Casebook Method

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Casebook method

The casebook method, also known as the case method, is the primary method of

teaching law in law schools in the United States. It was pioneered at Harvard Law Schoolby Christopher Columbus Langdell. It is based on the principle that rather than studying

highly abstract summaries of legal rules (the technique used in most countries), the bestway to learn American law is to read the actual judicial opinions which become the law

under the rule ofstare decisis(due to its Anglo-American common law origin).

History and technique

To set up the case method of law study, American lawprofessors traditionally collect the

most illustrative cases concerning a particular area of the law in special textbooks called

casebooks. Some professors heavily edit cases down to the most important paragraphs,while deleting nearly all citations and paraphrasing everything else; a few present all

cases in full, and most others are in between. One common technique is to provide almost

all of the entire text of a landmark case which created an important legal rule, followedby brief notes summarizing the holdings of other cases which further refined the rule.

Traditionally, the casebook method is coupled with the Socratic method in American law

schools. For a given class, a professor will assign several cases from the casebook to

read, and may also require students to be familiar with any notes following those cases.In class, the professor will ask students questions about the assigned cases to determine

whether they identified and understood the correct rule from the case, if there is one in

certain heavily contested areas of the law, there will notbe any one correct rule.

A typical example in the law of contracts isHadley v Baxendale(1854), a case that is stillroutinely tested on bar examinations today. Treatises designed for practicing lawyers as

well as textbooks for students earning non-legal degrees (i.e., business law courses for

business administration students) concisely state the famous rules announced in that casethat (1) consequential damages are limited to those foreseen by the parties at the time of

contracting, thus implying that (2) a party must notify the other up front of its specific

needs in order to expand what is mutually foreseeable and thereby recover consequentialdamages if the other breaches. Thus stated,Hadley seems simple enough, but a casebook

for a law school course will notsay that. Rather, the law student must deduce those

principles from the text of the Court of Exchequer's slightly archaic mid-19th-century

decision.

This teaching method differs in two ways from the teaching methods used in most other

academic programs: (1) it requires students to work almost exclusively with primary

source material which is often written in obscure or obsolete language; and (2) a typical

American law school class is supposed to be a dialogue about the meaning of a case, nota straightforward lecture.

In some law schools, the casebook method is used in conjunction with lectures or other

more structured forms of instruction. This is especially true in classes which are more
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heavily geared toward statutory law, such as tax law (which in the USA is governed by

the Internal Revenue Code) and certain areas ofcommercial law (particularly courses

dealing with the Uniform Commercial Code).

This method is also used in othercommon law countries, including Canada,Australia and

New Zealand.

Law school outlines

To accomplish the case method of study, "law school outlines" are used as legal topicstudy aids. Typically, the outlines are created by law school students, however there are

professional outlines also available. An outline typically provides a concise and direct

statement of legal issues in a particular area oflaw, organized according to the typicallaw school curriculum. In some cases, outlines are organized according to specific

professors or courses. Outlines often remove many legal nuances and fact specific

distinctions in case law to establish more generalized legal principles. Students must

remember to be cautious before relying on outlines written by others found on onlinedatabases such as http://outlines.com/. They frequently come with copyright notices and

may often be outdated. Many such sites also warn their users that relying on these

outlines alone will not be sufficient to prepare for an exam and they should only be usedas a supplement to the studying process.

Law school outlines help law students focus on the most important material they learned

for the semester, and are helpful before an exam. They are necessary because it would be

impossible to even skim over all of the material they are expected to cover in a semester.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Codehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Codehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Study_aid&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curriculumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_lawhttp://outlines.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Codehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Codehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Study_aid&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curriculumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_lawhttp://outlines.com/


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Case method

The case method is a teaching approach that consists in presenting the students with a

case, putting them in the role of a decision maker facing a problem (Hammond 1976). Ina case method classroom, both the instructor and the student must be active in different

ways. Each is dependent on the other to bring about teaching and learning. Instructors aregenerally experts, but they rarely deliver their expertise directly.[1]

The case method is a teaching method that is largely used inbusiness schools. For

instance, it has been used at the Harvard Business School since its founding in 1908

(Corey 1998) and at the Richard Ivey School of Business since 1921. It is also used insomepublic policy schools, such as the John F. Kennedy School of Government at

Harvard University.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_methodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#CITEREFHammond1976http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_schoolshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_Schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#CITEREFCorey1998http://www.ivey.ca/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_policy_schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Governmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#cite_note-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_methodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#CITEREFHammond1976http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_schoolshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_Schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#CITEREFCorey1998http://www.ivey.ca/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_policy_schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Governmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_method#cite_note-2

Documents

Casebook Method