Law students primarily learn by reading case books. Going to class helps sharpen issues, but reading and briefing cases on your own is where most of the work occurs. Casebooks are compiled by area of concentration such as contract, tort, property, criminal or civil procedure. The author of the case book selects and edits each opinion to convey one very specific point. Remember these three points about case books:

1. casebooks are collections of opinions put together by law school professors.
2. each casebook will cover one and only one area of the law, e.g. contracts. and
3. every opinion in your case books conveys one succinct point of law.

Such a simple tool, the table of contents is often overlooked by first year law students, but it should serve as the foundation for everything you do. The table of contents tells you exactly why the authors selected each case. It also shows you the big picture, where each case fits into the course. The table of contents is the framework for your outline, the starting point for your reading, and the road map for your briefs.

As an example, look at this excerpt from the table of contents of Real Estate Transactions, by James C. Smith. Suppose the assignment for class is to read pp. 62-75. Within this assignment, you are going to read 2 cases: Stefani v. Baird, and Market Force, Inc. v. Wauwatosa Realty. I can guarantee you that each case will contain one clearly expressed hold or rule that courts use to resolve the legal issue of "whom does the broker represent." How do I know this without even reading the case? Because the table of contents tells me.

It is no coincidence that the table of contents is such a useful device. Law professors design them this way. They do this in the tradition of Professor Christopher Columbus Langdell. Professor Langdell invented the casebook and the case method of teaching law school while he taught at Harvard at the end of the 19th C. He, like many of his contemporaries, thought that everything in nature could be classified according to scientific principles. Many scholars and scientist believed that human society could also be classified according to the natural rules that inherently governed it. They thought that one need only study societal relationships deeply enough to tease forth these implicit but powerful rules. Langdell hit upon the idea that the Law offered a perfect subject for this type of organization, and he set about organizing the law of contracts into its natural order. His effort produced the first casebook of contracts. Each opinion in the casebook expressed on important rule; exception to a rule ; or extension of a rule. And the casebook, like yours, was organized in a logical and scientific fashion.

The idea that the law can be studied and organized in a scientific way lost much credence by the end of the 20th century. But, because casebooks are wonderfully organized and informative law school professors have clung to them. As a way to teach the law, they are unparalleled because they force the student to dig out the legal principle of each case. Once you have the legal rule, you can look at the table of contents again and see how the rule fits into the grand scheme of things. So even though many scholars now reject the idea that law can be organized in a scientific fashion, they still prefer to teach the Law with casebooks.