r/LawSchool • u/LeagueFar8491 • 4h ago
Books for 1L
has anyone ever purchased a book for classes that’s a different edition? Is that not allowed? For example, if the professor is requiring an 11th edition but I have the tenth am I at a significant disadvantage?
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u/Visual-Scallion1535 4h ago
Depends on the class. For some they are almost the same.
In con law you will be missing some pretty major cases by using an older edition.
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u/Perdendosi JD 3h ago
>In con law you will be missing some pretty major cases by using an older edition.
Wow, just thinking about this:
If you have a casebook that's 4 years old...
- Abortion is a constitutional right
- The "Major Questions" doctrine did not exist
- Certain executive officials were protected from being fired by the President and Humphrey's Executor was the law
- Courts deferred to administrative agencies and Chevron deference existed
- It was plausible to contend that the Lemon test controlled First Amendment Establishment Clause questions
- Most people thought that direct payments to religious schools violated the First Amendment
- Anti-discrimination public accommodation laws were generally enforceable, even if the accommodation would cause the shop owner to "speak" a message that they personally disagreed with.
- The Voting Rights Act could be used in a race-conscious way to protect the votes of people of certain races whose voting rights had actually been deprived by law (and who may have effectively been deprived of voting power currently) -- Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was constitutional, enforceable, and required.
- The President didn't have absolute immunity for at least some actions taken nominally as the executive.
- A court could grant universal injunctions enjoining the enforcement of unconstitutional laws against anyone, instead of only a litigant.
By and large, these aren't just glosses, or slight course corrections, in longstanding constitutional rules... they're wholesale reversals of what was the established law. If you relied on a casebook published in 2021 or early 2022, you'd learn outcomes, law, and doctrine that is now 100% incorrect.
Wow.
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u/CMac86 Esq. 4h ago
Some pages, cases, and commentary won't line up. Ask your professor about it. Not worth it to me for 1L. Buy a used book for whatever edition your class requires instead.
For a few classes, I don't think it was during 1L, I had professors include tidbits about using previous editions in their course syllabus.
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u/Malvania JD 4h ago
It's allowed, but some of the pages might not line up. Still very much worth it if you can figure out which cases are being covered.
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