Legislation and Regulation: Cases and Materials

by John F. Manning, Matthew C. Stephenson

This casebook is specifically designed for a first-year class on Legislation & Regulation, and provides a proven, ready-to-use set of materials for schools or instructors interested in introducing such a class to their 1L curriculum.

Genres: Law

1223 pages, Hardcover

First published June 9, 2010

Reviews

[Youlia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is 1115 pages of substantive material + the appendix, which we literally read cover to cover in my LegReg class so I am GETTING MY GOODREADS CREDIT FOR THIS. take that law school!!!

(yes i am giving this 5 stars, it is the best organized textbook i have had all year, ty @ john f manning, u a real one, bless)

[Lila Zarrella · Rating 3 out of 5]

APA… more like APslay

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waffled between two or three stars on this one. I figure that because LegReg is a relatively squishy subject and my own bad habits contributed to not enjoying the book, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

The authors chose the right cases, provided meaningful context most of the time, and wrote relatively clearly.

My major demerits can be summed up as "why am I reading this instead of something else?"

First, the authors spend too much time explaining legal academic battles. I got the sense that Admin Law is the "prestige" academic legal topic. A flood of academic writing dissects and re-dissects Supreme Court decisions in this area. The authors devote substantial space in the after-case notes to explain how academics have been fighting over the case since. Entire paragraphs are just string citations to legal academic articles. There's no right answer to the questions they fight over, so I think it ends up being fuss without a point. (I'll grudgingly accept that I found the fights interesting some times).

Second, the books does the same "paragraph of questions" technique that I find so irritating in other textbooks. These paragraphs waste the student's time. If the authors want me to think through an issue, or apply the ruling to a new situation, then format it that way.

By the end of the class, I found myself surprised how much of doing "well" in LegReg involves exercising good judgment. Good judgment, in the absence of mechanical rules, tends to involve experience in making those judgments. LegReg, in my ideal world, would be an experiential class that involved making statutory interpretation decisions or reviewing an agency's actions. Realizing that's probably impractical (we had 110 students in the lecture class), I would hope for a textbook that affords some opportunity to do that. Because it doesn't, I found the demerits above more serious.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, canonical, inclined toward scholarship but keeps its feet on the ground. Could use more content on pragmatic and normativist schools of thought (e.g. critical theories).

[Monroe · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite law school textbook :)

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

the citations got a little annoying but great content! girl’s gotta meet her reading goals somehow

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was fine but the panic about separation of powers every chapter got kind of old

[Ruby Jarvis]

PAIN

[Weixiao Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authoritative author in the field. But beware of Manning's conservative agenda.