Integrating Supplemental Materials in Core Courses
by
Arthur J. Sabin

Core courses in law curricula have many purposes: to introduce the discipline of legal reasoning, to challenge students to learn through the Socratic method, to introduce components of the common law system, and to deliver a body of knowledge of the particular area of the law being taught. The usual method of addressing these tasks involves the use of casebooks, which, in the hands of competent teaching, achieves these goals.

By their design and content, casebooks survey essential principles, propositions, and approaches. The editor makes no attempt to relate a body of law to any particular state. While many law professors see little need or purpose in dealing with the law in the state in which their school is located, there are valid arguments for doing so. These include reducing the general to the concrete specifics of a state's body of law and legal system, reflecting the pragmatic fact that most students will be practicing in the state where the school is located. Furthermore, students have a natural curiosity about how their specific state has dealt with a particular issue.

One way to do this is to use supplementary materials. For example, in my Torts class I had out selected pattern jury instructions covering concepts that arise during the course. The jury instructions express abstract concepts in understandable terms and inform students about their state's law. They also give the students insight about the operation of the court system and the role of judges and juries.

I also supplement the casebook with leading cases from the state, which demonstrate the reasoning of the state's courts on particular issues. These materials similarly narrow the students' focus from the general to the specific and also demonstrate how courts deal with the usual variety of issues raised in an appeal -- not just a single or narrow range of issues in the edited casebook rendition.

As the course progresses, I hand out additional supplemental cases to punctuate how the state has recently handled the area of law under consideration. This helps students to understand that what they are learning is more than theory: Here are cases that demonstrate how our state has actually dealt with the problem. This opens up the opportunity for critical analysis of the state's position in the light of casebook examples.

At appropriate points in the course, articles from newspapers, bar journals, or commentaries on a specific area will help students to explore the issues and examine divergent views. For example, when dealing with the concept of punitive damages, I bring in articles on different sides of the issue to breathe fire into the arguments as well as to inject the pragmatics of the economic impact.

Other supplementary material might include extracts from statutes to demonstrate the connection between case and statutory law and the role of the legislature in the legal process. For example, after studying the common law categories of persons who come on the land of another, students study the Illinois statute merging categories. Students then discuss majority and minority views on the matter, as well as the obvious impact of the statute on the common law.

Using selected supplementary materials can engage students in the law of the state where their law school is situated. And there is an impressive array of ancillary benefits. The specific law of every state, together with current arguments over relevant issues, should yield significant pragmatic benefits for all of the typical core courses.