Course Description
601:593. GREAT BOOKS OF THE COMMON LAW (2 or 3)
LE20
I didn’t understand Contracts in law school, so, when I became a professor, I decided I’d teach from the same casebook and try to figure it out. But it still made no sense. After a few frustrating years, I remembered that my professor had suggested a number of books he thought we should read. When I finally picked them up, I realized they were the hardest books I’d ever read. Slowly I figured out the question to which these writers were all responding. Then Contracts became clear, really clear, as did the rest of the private law. This is the class I wish someone had taught while I was in law school, though I probably would have been too cool to take it.
This course will also focus on your writing by carefully examining good writing in the law.
Readings vary each semester and will include texts by some of the following authors, among others: Max Weber, Blackstone, Holmes, Maitland, Cardozo, Llewellyn, Hart and Sacks, Gilmore, Paul Freund, Roberto Unger, Richard Posner, Mary Jo Frug, Pat Williams, and Roger Fisher.