Bibliography of American Law School Casebooks
HeinOnline Specialist
About the Database
Collecting Casebooks
Before we jump into exploring the titles included in this index, first we need to explain what is included in the index, what isn't, and the methodology used when gathering these titles. While today a casebook can easily be identified by its binding or series designation, that was not always the publication practice. There is no Library of Congress Subject Heading dedicated to casebooks specifically, so identifying titles not included in a publisher's casebook series required the editor to manually examine thousands of catalog entries. Adding to the difficulty in identifying early casebooks was the fact that at the turn of the 20th century there were many “casebooks” available that were collections of leading cases on a topic, but were produced for attorneys to aid in the practice of law. Because the intent of this bibliography is to provide a list of those casebooks intended for instructional use in law schools, every attempt has been made to omit titles clearly not intended for classroom use.
This index also purposefully omits some supplementary titles to casebooks, including supplementary text and cases, teacher's manuals and concise or "black letter" student guides. Production of these materials rose dramatically in the second half of the 20th century, and today casebooks are systematically accompanied by some sort of supplementary material. Unlike more recent materials, many of the early supplements were often necessary companions to casebooks and are important to understanding the evolution and development of casebooks and the case method. Because of this, supplements published prior to 1950 are included.
Lastly, this bibliography only includes casebooks produced in the United States. While a casebook on the topic of international law published by Oxford University Press might very well have been used in U.S. law schools, without a clear statement that it was intended for such use, the title would be deliberately omitted from this index.
Ready, Set, Research
Upon arriving in the collection, users are greeted by an introduction derived from the introductions written for the two print editions of Lind's Bibliography of American Law School Casebook. A picture of Christopher Langdell appears to the right of the introductory text. Navigate to the index itself using the tab at the top of the page, and keep reading for an in-depth explanation of how to use this feature.
Browsing the Index
Use the custom casebooks index to browse the bibliography by Subject, Author, Title, Publisher, or Series. Use the dropdown boxes to search by these fields, as well, or also search by keywords. Casebooks for which the full text is available will have their title hyperlinked. From the results page, view other results by author, subject, or series by clicking their respective hyperlinks.
A Few Things to Note
A Few Things to NotePublisher
This index retains the formatting convention of the print versions on which it is based. Books for whom the publisher was not readily identifiable are surrounded by brackets; these entries can all be located under the Other option in the A-Z navigation bar.
To help explain the effect of this formatting when browsing alphabetically by publisher, let's turn to the publisher Bobbs-Merrill for an example. Users will see in the A-Z listing of titles a listing under B, for Bobbs-Merrill, and another under Other, for [Bobbs-Merrill]. All titles associated with both Bobbs-Merrill and [Bobbs-Merrill] will appear under B, but those suspected but not definitively known to have been published by the Indianapolis-based house will appear under [Bobbs-Merrill]. To illustrate, view the screenshot below from the Bobbs-Merrill title listing.
Title
Titles in the index do not omit initial articles; therefore, look for titles such as A California Companion for the Course in Wills, Trusts, and Estates Selected Cases and Statutes Including All Statutes Required for the California Bar Exam, 2009-2010 under A for "a", not C for "California." Similarly, expect to find The American Constitution: Cases, Comments, Questions under T for "the," not A for "American."
Build a Search
The casebooks index allows users to build a search across all entries using keywords, title, author, publisher, subject, and series and can be accessed both from the Casebooks Index tab and from the Advanced Search link located under the main search bar when inside the collection. The main search bar is stationary throughout HeinOnline and can also be used to search for content in this collection, but we recommend using the Index for an optimal searching experience. Need a refresher on how to construct a perfect search? Click Search Help for a quick reference guide to commonly used search syntax.
Explore Results
Search for a particular author using the index. For example, let's look up casebooks authored by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren on the subject of secured transactions. Select the Author field from the dropdown menu and type in elizabeth warren, and select Subject from another dropdown field and enter secured transactions. Use the facets on the left side of the page to narrow your results by Date, Authors, Series, and Publishers. Sort search results by relevance, volume date, and title, and save any relevant results to your personal MyHein research account. Use the icons next to the sort-by bar to modify your current search, to search within results, to print the results page, or to turn OFF infinite scroll.
