Law in America

Introduction

At my university (Stanford) I teach a course to undergraduates called Introduction to American Law. On my way to class, on the first day-the class usually meets at nine o'clock, and it is a tough assignment to keep the students awake-I buy a copy of the Chronicle, the morning newspaper from San Francisco. When I begin the class, after the first few announcements and the like, I wave the paper in front of the class, and read some of the headlines. The point I want to get across to the students is that every domestic story in the front part of the newspaper, before you get to the recipes and the comics and the sports pages, has a legal angle-has some connection with the legal system. Of course, I have no control over the newspaper, but the trick never fails. Almost invariably, every story about public life in the United States, or private life interesting enough to get into the newspaper, will mention a law, a legal proposal, a bill in Congress or in the state legislature, or something a judge, a policeman, a court, a lawyer has done or said; or some statem ... read full excerpt from Law in America ebook