Modern Constitutional Law Cases, Problems and Practice

Unlike other casebooks that typically seek to tackle the entirety of Constitutional Law and are organized from the perspective of the constitutional scholar—a top-down approach that encompasses (and even emphasizes) theoretical and philosophical perspectives and debates—Modern Constitutional Law: Cases, Problems and Practice focuses on key areas of constitutional law and is organized from the ground-up. Rather than assuming students will one day be making constitutional arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court (or teaching Constitutional Law), this book assumes students will more likely be making constitutional arguments before a state or federal trial court. And so it focuses on those areas of Constitutional Law that are likely to be relevant to the practice areas in which most law students will work after law school—small or solo firms that count individuals and small businesses as their clientele, or the offices of state agencies, district attorneys, or public defenders.

New to the Second Edition:

• Updated with key First Amendment cases through the 2017–2018 Supreme Court term, including Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman and Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
• Includes commentary on controversial cases from the 2017–2018 Supreme Court term, including Trump v. Hawaii
• Existing cases have been further edited to preserve the scope of the book while reducing its size
• Additional supplemental cases are added to the online Professor Resources to allow professors to add coverage of most areas of constitutional law

Professors and students will benefit from:

• Narrower scope than other casebooks, the book is more manageable for 3- and 4- credit courses
• A focus on doctrine rather than theory
• Emphasis on modern and contemporary cases rather than historical ones (although landmark cases, such as McCulloch v. Maryland, The Prize Cases, and Lochner v. New York, to name a few, are also included)
• Coverage that focuses on the issues most relevant to the types of practice students will enter upon graduation, such as due process, equal protection, and First Amendment
• Inclusion of cases from the lower federal and state courts, courts in which most students are most likely to one day find themselves litigating constitutional issues
• Inclusion of a generous number of case excerpts to help students develop their ability to read legal texts closely and extract useful information, rather than, like many casebooks, relying on numerous Notes to cover the jurisprudence in a particular area
• Each chapter includes one or more Problems to provide students opportunities to apply the doctrines learned
• Each chapter includes one or more “Practice Perspectives” that present the facts, background, and resolution of actual constitutional law cases, challenging students to explain the results based on what they have learned in the chapter