Real Property for the Real World : Building Skills Through Case Study

Attention property law professors! With eight in-depth case studies based on real cases, real people, real documents, and real problems, Real Property for the Real World is your key to unlock the door to experiential education opportunity with ease. Breathe new life into your existing syllabus with this supplementary paperback, designed specifically to infuse the 1L property law classroom with Early Lawyer Literacy (ELL) skills exercises that will deepen students’ doctrinal learning while adding excitement and spice to your classroom.

Worried that this might take too much time away from your casebook or teaching? Have no fear: lawyers-gone-professors Way, Wood, and Marsh include all the rich detail from their interesting and complex cases (transactional, litigation) in simple format, equipping you with the questions and model answers you need to have fun with students without recreating the wheel, or even an exercise. Slip seamlessly into “real lawyer” mode as you draw upon their exercises, divided into eight basic issue areas (from adverse possession to partition to zoning) and sliced and diced into accessible parts that you can mix and match to customize the experiential experience. (Don’t worry, the authors provide simple tables breaking down the amount of time each part will consume both in and out of class, down to the minute.)

Starting small? Use this book to allow students to explore online real property records or visit eviction court with the tools and tasks that will make property law come alive. Diving deeper, allow students to interview real clients (scripts provided) or review pleadings (simplified and redacted) to explore the Early Lawyering Literacy skills identified by the authors and recognized widely by the ABA and others.

The sky is the limit with this new book, the first of its kind to bring meaningful experiential education opportunities into the 1L class in a way that amplifies traditional core concepts and doesn’t disrupt. Join in as property law gets its due on the cutting edge of legal education!

"These case studies are a wonderful way to engage students beyond the core doctrinal instruction in a first year Property course. It is also wonderful as an assessment too, to be used throughout the course to test how well students can apply concepts to every day disputes, as well as to get them writing out. The Teacher's Manual is terrific and allows you to break down the case studies in digestible individual written and/or small group exercises. The students really loved tackling the case studies together and I was rewarded with some of the best exam answers I have received."
―Sheila R. Foster, Professor of Law and Public Policy, Georgetown University

“I have now used Real Property for the Real World in two first-year Property classes, and I won’t ever teach Property without it again. My students love the exercises from this book! Students come to class chattering about the work they did preparing for the classroom discussion; during class they are eager to discuss and dissect what they learned while doing the practical exercises; and after class the discussion spills over into office hours. The messiness of real-life lawyering is eye opening for them! In addition, scattering chapters from this book throughout the semester re-energizes the students on a periodic basis. Students love rethinking what they have learned after gaining insights about lawyering from the practical exercises, and they bring these insights to subsequent material. Finally, exposing first-year students to practical exercises about real lawyering reminds them why they came to law school in the first place. I love this book!”
― Lynn E. Blais, Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law