Legal Commentary

I previously have written about dropping the traditional casebook in some classes in favor of some combination of unedited cases and supplemental materials (what some readers dubbed the "uncasebook"). Well, this semester I am going to give it a shot in  Civil Rights. Each section of the syllabus lists cases (along with citations) for students to download (from whatever source) and read in full, supplemented by pages in a good civil rights treatise, written by Harold S. Lewis Jr. (Mercer).

My main initial concern is reading load. In two sections in particular (Municipal Liability and Qualified Immunity), the major cases are long and the treatise reading runs more than 40 pages--that's a pretty heavy load, even for upper-level students. But I am not sure how to get out that; the additional pages are, I think, necessary to give the history and full picture to both doctrinal areas. My guess (and hope) is that students will focus on the cases and more-or-less skim the treatise, which is fine.

Otherwise, we will see how this goes.