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First Year Reading Assignments

This information is correct as of 1/10/08. Students should check CourseInfo for a complete list of all course assignments and information.

Spring 2008 Reading Assignment

First Year

Civil Procedure (Farnsworth)
JD873 A1
For the first day, please get the next round of course materials from Kinko's and read through the middle of page seven. Those first pages are also available at the Courseinfo site.

Civil Procedure (Bone)
JD873 C1
Welcome back to the second semester of Civil Procedure.  I've posted Syllabus Part III and Distribution No. 4 to the Course Documents section.  The assignment for the first class on Tuesday, January 15, is to read through VI.B.1. of Syllabus Part III and come prepared to discuss Mas v. Perry.  See you on January 15.

Civil Procedure II (Collins)
JD873 B1
[Not yet received]

Constitutional Law (Fleming)
JD810 A1
Welcome to Constitutional Law! The casebook for the course is Walter F. Murphy, James E. Fleming, Sotirios A. Barber & Stephen Macedo, American Constitutional Interpretation (3d ed. 2003) ("ACI"). It is available in the Bookstore. The assignment for the first class is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, pp. 1404-31. You should also read, as an introduction to the course, pp. 1-21.
I will post the syllabus for the semester on CourseInfo by Thursday, January 10.
I look forward to meeting you!

Constitutional Law (Baxter)
JD810 B1
For Tuesday, January 15, read and prepare pp. 1-10 of the casebook.  For Wednesday, January 16, read and prepare pp. 99-112.

Contracts (Pettit)
JD813 A1
Welcome back!  I hope your break was relaxing and enjoyable.  I am looking forward to another semester with you.  As I announced in our last class, the assignment for our first class of the new semester, on Tuesday, January 15, is pages 487 to 500 of our casebook.   The assignment for Wednesday will be to read pages 500-506 and pages 511-513 and skim pages 506-510 of our casebook.
Mark Pettit

Criminal Law (Sloane)
JD946 B1
Welcome back. The principal text is John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, & Guyora Binder, Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (5th ed. 2004). Before the semester begins, please read pages 1-16 of the Introduction and 971-74 of Appendix A. This is background material that supplies essential context for the study of the substantive criminal law, but we will not discuss it in detail in class. For our first session on Tuesday, January 15, please read the material assigned for Unit 1 on the syllabus (pages 21-52).
Consider, in particular, the questions at the bottom of page 26: Why should Jones be punished? Why should Green? How and how much should they be punished? Think about these issues in both absolute terms (e.g., Green deserves five years; Jones deserves eighteen years) and comparative terms (e.g., Green deserves twice as much punishment as Jones). Try to relate your answers to the consequentialist (crime-control) rationales for punishment set out in the reading. (You mayalso want toconsider issues of retributivism and "just deserts," although we will take up those rationales in more detail in our second session.) Please do not feel constrained by the legal categorization of the crimes or the statutory ranges stipulated in each of the hypothetical cases. I want to know what you think is appropriate punishment for each defendant and why.

Property (Seipp)
JD876 A1
For Property, Section A1 (Prof. Seipp), first class on Tuesday, January 15th, the first assignment is the first section of the syllabus on CourseInfo:
1. (Jan. 15) The Relative Nature of Property Rights Materials, p. 1:
Armory v. Delamirie, 1 Strange 505, 93 Eng. Rep. 664 (K.B. 1722), as it appears in the law reports.
Dukeminier & Krier, pp. 95-99:
Armory v. Delamirie, 1 Strange 505, 93 Eng. Rep. 664 (K.B. 1722), and text, notes and questions.
Materials, p. 2:
Massachusetts General Laws, ch. 134, §§ 1,3,4.

Property (Lawson)
JD876 A2
For Tuesday 1/15, please read the materials in Part I and Part II-A-1 of the syllabus (through Bradshaw v. Ashley in the supplemental materials soon(?) to be on CourseInfo).
For Thursday 1/17, please read the materials in Part II-A-2 of the syllabus (through Texas American Energy in the supplemental materials).

Property (Ryckman)
JD876 B1
[Not yet received]

Property (McClain)
JD876 C1
Assignment for First Class, Thursday, Jan. 17:  Property, Prof. McClain (JD 876)
Dukeminier, Krier, Alexander, and Schill, Property (6th ed. 2006), pages 1-17 (Acquistion by Discovery)
These four  readings in folder, “Acquisition by Discovery,” in Course Documents link on course page for Property (they should be on the course page by Thursday, 1/10):
Tee-Hit Ton Indians v. United States
Cases Highlight Unique Status of Indian Lands
Mending a Trail of Broken Treaties
Land Claim Suit Argued in Court
A syllabus will be distributed the first day of class and then be available on the coursepage. The course page for Property, JD 876, should be up and running by Wednesday, Jan. 9, or Thursday, Jan. 10.

Torts (Farnsworth)
JD892 C1
There is no reading assignment for the first day.

Torts (Simons)
JD892 C2
For the first class, on Tuesday, January 15, please read the Introduction (xxxiii-xlvi) and read carefully pages 1-8 (first full para.) from Chapter One.  Do not be concerned about fully understanding every detail of the introduction at this point.  I suggest that you reread it a few weeks into the course, at which point it will be more comprehensible.
If you want to read ahead, I expect that we will be discussing pages 8-16 on Wednesday and Friday.
The casebook for the course is Farnsworth & Grady, Torts: Cases and Questions (2004).