After your casebook, "Casenotes" will be your most important reference source for the entire semester. It is the most popular legal briefs series available, with over 140 titles, and is relied on by thousands of students for its expert case summaries, comprehensive analysis of concurrences and dissents, as well as of the majority opinion in the briefs.
Interesting for a textbook with lots of good background extras included. My only complaint is its heavy reliance on unintelligible old English case law.
I read significant portions of this case book for a two semester contracts class taught by Professor Chung at Albany Law School.
I think most students do not enter law school to study the law of contracts. I know I didn't. For whatever reason it was not what inspired me to become a lawyer. However, after reading this case book and being introduced to the topic the law of contracts is throughly interesting and something that I wouldn't mind studying more of or even practicing in the future.
Barnett's casebook presents the law of contracts in a very clear way mostly through case law buttressed by law review articles, treatise excerpts, sections of the restatement of contracts.
Hate the class, so that doesn't help with my opinion about this book, but the layout could have been much better in order to be more effective reading.
My professor wrote this book. I sincerely enjoyed his class. He also introduced me to a wonderful book called, "Law & Revolution: The History of Western Tradition," which analyzes how Catholic Papal reforms contributed to the Western legal tradition (this is one area of focus in the book that interests me).
Contracts was not my favorite class, but I did like the supplemental essays and background in this book that helped you see law as more than just the text of the case.
A K-law casebook is not for everyone, but perhaps for your aspiring lawyer friend or significant other, or perhaps to shut up that precocious teenager who, having just read Nietzsche or Turgenov, thinks he knows everything. It that case, Barnett's choice to include short essays flushing out the historical background is a welcome departure from your typical casebook, which prizes a ongoing series of open-ended questions that are typically irrelevant to the course as taught.
I found the prose and organization of this casebook easy to understand. Although I never had time to read them, I liked that Barnett included historical background on some of the major cases and that he included diverse perspectives on contract law.
Hilarious and riveting ride through the development and current state of contract affairs in the USA (plus some riotous cases from 17th century England).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.