This extraordinary paperback provides a highly accessible and appealing orientation to the American legal system and presents basic concepts of civil litigation. An Introduction to the American Legal System: Whose Monet? focuses on a lengthy dispute over the ownership of a painting as a vehicle for introducing students to the basic law school tasks of reading analytically, understanding legal materials, and working with the common law.
The author and his colleagues have used these materials successfully in their classrooms for many years, ensuring their teachability and effectiveness:
 Whose Monet? can be used as primary course material in orientation courses or seminars, as well as collateral reading for in-semester Legal Process or Civil Procedure courses;
The major events in a lawsuit are considered, and the text sheds light on how the law is applied in a civil dispute, introducing common law and statutory law and the various courts and their interrelationship (trial/appellate, state/federal);
The author draws on judicial opinions, litigation papers, transcripts, and selections from commentators and various jurisprudential sources, thereby exposing the reader to as broad a spectrum of materials as possible;
Telling the story of a real lawsuit (DeWeerth v. Baldinger) from client intake through trial and various appeals draws readers into the legal process by means of an engaging narrative;
The lawyer's role is examined in both its functional and moral dimensions: What do lawyers do? What does society legitimately expect lawyers to do?
The Table of Contents includes:
The Lawyer s Task: Facts and Law;
Deciding Whether to Sue;
Deciding Where to Sue: The Court System;
Commencing a Civil Action;
The Complaint;
The Common Law;
The Answer;
Discovery;
A Motion for Summary Judgment;
Statutory Law and Administrative Regulation;
The Trial;
The Judgment (and a motion for a judgment n.o.v. );
The Appeal;
The Aftermath. |
