Property: Principles And Policies

by Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith

This new casebook is designed for a building block Property course that serves as a foundation for students remaining years in law school and beyond. It presents the subject through vivid cases, including most of those beloved by generations of property teachers. In contrast to other casebooks presenting property as a hodge-podge of issues, this book organizes the material in an integrated way, starting with the idea of property as the right to exclude and systematically developing elaborations, exceptions, and counterfoils to this idea. Issues of contemporary relevance such as intellectual property and regulatory takings are given relatively pervasive and expansive treatment. The emphasis throughout is on fundamental principles and policy questions.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction

1456 pages, Hardcover

First published March 16, 2007

Reviews

[Brooke Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Professor Brady told me I deserve the goodreads credit

[Dana Sweeney · Rating 3 out of 5]

You best believe this doorstop counts toward my 2024 Reading Challenge

[Shelby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disclaimer: This is 1/5 on the casebook scale, not to be compared to novels and non-casebooks that I read for joy (rather than for grades).

Pros:
- Estates

Cons:
- Every topic that wasn’t estates

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s only fair that the 500 pages of property reading I did this semester count towards my reading goal 🤭

[Lila Zarrella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything for Professor Brady

[Mayonez Sidorovich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Made me want to Eyerman v. Mercantile Trust Co. myself

[Risa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is my life for the next three days. Unless you have a strange fascination with property law, I don't recommend it. But as property textbooks go, I suppose it's pretty good. And sometimes the author is funny (but not very often).

[Jack Neary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about who gets what and why. I attended several book talks by one of the authors, and it was incredibly enlightening.

[William Snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

The textbook was aight; Vicki Been gets five stars though for making Property come to life in the classroom and making it analytically fascinating

[Dylan Kochan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly, this casebook book was really enjoyable. The notes were quite interesting and I enjoyed some discussions approaching the historical development of the Property Law Doctrine.

[Yingtong Guo · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...#

[sam hernandez]

there sure are a lot of rules about all that property stuff.

[Emma Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the only 1L book I ACTUALLY read front to back!! Big fan of property law I guess?

[Jessica]

Yale Law, 1L Spring, Property w/ Robert Ellickson.

[Caleb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too long; much like the contracts book, it only gets two stars because of the prevalence of photographs (and reprints of old drawings/paintings).

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taught from this for the first time this year.