1L - First Year Lesson Topics

Criminal Law: An Integrated Approach

Criminal Law: An Integrated Approach is a new textbook designed for a first-year law school course in criminal law. Its aim is to present an accurate overview of American criminal law as it operates in the twenty-first century, with attention to racial disparities and other inequalities and to the features of criminal law that produce these inequalities. The book covers basic principles of criminal liability and introduces students to standard definitions of property crimes, crimes against the person, and drug and gun offenses.

A First Generation's Guide to Law School

The interactive version of this guide is available online in CALI Lawbooks

This is written as a guide for first-generation students who are entering or are currently attending law school. It introduces students to law school vocabulary and available resources, gives guidance about how to prepare for the unique challenges of law school, and provides a roadmap for things like participating in class, studying for and taking exams, joining extracurriculars, taking care of your mental health, and networking. The guide includes interactive exercises that test the student's knowledge of concepts, encourage the student to reflect on their own interests and experiences, and explore resources in their law school and elsewhere. 

Tort Law: A 21st-Century Approach

The interactive version of the Second Edition is available online in CALI Lawbooks.
For the CALI Lawbooks version of the First Edition, go here

Tort Law: A 21st-Century Approach (TL21C) introduces students to tort law with a set of cases and methods that have been updated for 21st century legal education. Pairing classic cases with a host of recent, lesser-known cases, the casebook deliberately provides opportunities to engage with issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, class as well as fundamental questions of civil justice. The book’s introduction diverges from the standard method of teaching torts, by framing the subject matter in terms of the three primary regimes of tort law—negligence, strict liability and the intentional torts—and by setting the stakes for questions of policy from the outset.

Criminal Procedure: A Free Law School Casebook

This Casebook is designed for the “investigations” criminal procedure class commonly taught at American law schools. It focuses on the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Fourth Amendment topics include definitions of “search” and “seizure,” probable cause, warrants, exceptions to the warrant requirement (e.g., plain view, consent, automobiles), stop & frisk, and arrests. Moving to interrogations, the book covers due process and the voluntariness requirement, the Miranda Rule, and the Massiah doctrine.

Torts and Regulation: Cases, Principles, and Institutions

Torts and Regulation: Cases, Principles, and Institutions, Third Edition (TRCPI) is designed to bring together common law principles in the field of torts with related statutory and regulatory materials. The aim is to provide a text that introduces students to key tort principles and the way in which those tort principles have in part shaped the regulatory state and in part been supplanted by the regulatory state.

American Contract Law for a Global Age

American Contract Law for a Global Age by Franklin G. Snyder and Mark Edwin Burge of Texas A&M University School of Law is a casebook designed primarily for the first-year Contracts course as it is taught in American law schools, but is configured so as to be usable either as a primary text or a supplement in any upper-level U.S. or foreign class that seeks to introduce American contract law to students.  As an eLangdell text, it offers maximum flexibility for students to read either in hard copy or electronic format on most electronic devices.

Distance Learning in Legal Education: Design, Delivery and Recommended Practices

This paper was written as a collaborative project by the Working Group on Distance Education in Legal Education. Contributors included law faculty, administrators, instructional designers, and law school librarians.

The materials are intended to provide law schools and interested parties with a summary of distance learning opportunities, tools, and considerations. The paper presents three fundamental questions and attempts to provide a discussion of each.

1. How should a law school implement distance education?

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