Constitutional Law: Principles And Policies (Introduction to Law Series)

I would give it more stars if I could!!!

This is the godsend that will let you pass Con Law with a decent grade! I swear it on my life. If you are a 1L or a 1L to be you HAVE HAVE HAVE to buy this book. Especially if your casebooks is Sullivan Gunther massive, 6 pound book. Seriously, that thing might as well be written in an alient tongue.

If you can, I suggest you read your Chemerinsky over the break before your classes start and you'll go into Con Law with a definitive advantage.

Buy it!!! It saved my life!

This treatise is very helpful if you have a professor that does not stick to the material you need to learn for the final exam.

If you use Chemerinsky's text, this book is awesome for explaining the same concepts the casebook covers. Not sure why Chemerinsky doesn't just explain it this clearly in the notes before and after the cases (probably to sell these supplements). This book is clear and easy to use. If you are confused about con law and have the chimerinsky book, this is a great book.

My prof. practically teaches word for word from this book. It fills in any gaps I have from class and then some.

a lot of people swear by this book, but honestly, i wasn't that impressed.

for one thing, it's organized by topic/subject area, so the same case is often mentioned in several areas. this means that if you want to read about a particular case, you have to check 10 different places in the book and try to construct a holistic picture of the case in your mind. this also means that you don't really get a chronologica/historical picture of evolving jurisprudence because everything is so fragmented.

also, the treatments of cases and topics are very cursory. it's hard to get a grasp on concepts or really figure out what was going on with a case or with a line of cases in a particular area when everything gets a one-sentence summary. it all seems kind of rushed and thrown together, and i often found i was more confused after going to this book for guidance.

i know it's hard to effectively summarize and review constitutional law, because it's an extremely vast subject (as evidenced by the fact that con law casebooks are usually over 1000 pages). this book was a valiant attempt at doing so. and maybe if i had actually used the chemerinsky casebook in my class, i would've benefited more from the study guide.

overall, though, i just didn't find this study guide that helpful.