Doing Away with the Case Method: What could go Wrong?

Abstract

This chapter aims to sound a note of caution against leaping into the modern world of contract law teaching. It describes the casebook method that use when teaching. The chapter looks at some of the identified shortcomings of this approach and the criticisms directed towards before provide some responses to these criticisms, and finally some thoughts on how the casebook method can be improved. It provides some food for thought for contract law teachers at both the innovative and the more conservative ends of the spectrum. Through the casebook method students are also introduced to the wonders of inconsistent and uncertain statutory drafting. The wider problem is that law students are “spoon-fed” in a traditional casebook method class. The benefits of the casebook method and forcing students to read a large number of cases is probably increasing, since students in the second decade of the twenty-first century are so ill-equipped to concentrate and read for long periods of time.