When I think I'll be able to get $1498 for each copy -- which is to say when students and young lawyers who use the treatise will think that they can make lots of money billing the time they spend writing their law review articles.

$1,498 is pretty steep, even with the free shipping. When can we expect the cheap paperback edition?

Is it searchable on http://books.google.com/? Apparently not. Isn't Google the ones who claimed fair use when scanning in borrowed books?

Mr. Patry,

How many complimentary copies does an author get of such an expensive and voluminous treaty?

Colin. I got 15 copies, so I gave away 13.

JohnAnnArbor, I don't think my answer was an evasion at all (especially to what was merely a sarcastic comment by Guest 12345) and you don't explain why you think so. I used Book Search alot in writing the treatise and bought dozens of books because of it. I used it to find where a good research source was and then I bought a copy of the book and used it for its research, page after page after page. Would you really find it useful to read snippets here or there from a 6,000 page treatise that is divided up into 25 discrete chapters? In any event, you tell me what chapter you are interested in and I will send you a free copy of it.

riptide. I agree about the utility of pdfs. I have pdfs on my laptop and think its a great way to do searches for discrete issues although I still like hardcopy to do real reading reading. I have talked to West about a CD ROM version.

Thanks, Guest 12345. It took me 7 years to write this version, but if you include all the other prior work that I included and updated, you would add another 7 years. All together, its probably about 15,000 hours work and 25 years experience, so when one says $1498 is a high price, you have to look at how much time I put in. When I left private practice in October of last year, my billable rate was $700.

Book Search as now constituted only allows snippets of a sentence or two, and of course suit was filed over that small amount. But I am happy to send anyone, for free, my discussion of any topic they are interested in.

Sorry, Bill Patry for misspelling your name. Damn.

Book Search as now constituted only allows snippets of a sentence or two, and of course suit was filed over that small amount. But I am happy to send anyone, for free, my discussion of any topic they are interested in.

Thanks again for your responses. Mainly I'm saying, for the hurried souls, being able to type, into some kind of electronic index, a phrase or a set of words and getting back a list of pages: volume 3, pages 400, 402, 413, etc. Then running to a shelf and pulling that volume down to actually read those pages.

Have a splendid evening.

Since Mel Nimmer's name is mentioned in Eugene's post, I hope this anecdote, rather well known, isn't too far out of bounds here. Marty Lederman, posting on a UCLA message forum of some sort, wrote of Mel's appearance for the petitioner in Cohen vs. California, the "Fuck the Draft" case:

When Mel Nimmer stood up to argue on Cohen's behalf, [Chief Justice Warren] Burger immediately instructed him as follows: "Mr. Nimmer, you may proceed whenever you're ready. I might suggest to you that . . . the Court is thoroughly familiar with the factual setting of this case and it will not be necessary for you, I'm sure, to dwell on the facts." This was, of course, a signal to refrain from quoting the jacket. Nimmer, to his credit, responded to the Chief's suggestion by saying, "I certainly will keep very brief the statement of facts," and then proceeded to explain that Cohen had been "convicted of engaging in tumultuous and offensive conduct, in violation of the California Disturbing the Peace Statute . . . . What this young man did" -- pregnant pause -- "was to walk through a courthouse corridor in Los Angeles County . . . wearing a jacket upon which were inscribed the words 'Fuck the Draft.'"!

I forgot who told me this -- and perhaps it's apocryphal -- but apparently Nimmer had decided before the argument that he had little choice but to speak the words without reservation in order to win the case.

Larry Sager, another old acquaintance of mine, responded on the same forum:

The story is true, I believe. I heard it first from Nimmer himself, when he was my colleague at UCLA, a thousand years ago. It is repeated, I believe, in The Brethen.

Apparently Nimmer repeated the word fuck several times during his argument, no doubt on the theory that the more he said it, the less offensive it would appear to be. I guess his stature in the law and his reputation as a really lovely fellow helped him carry it off. I can just imagine Burger fuming silently, unable to say anything for fear of revealing himself to be what he was, a prude.

Justice Harlan, of course, went on to write a finely reasoned majority opinion that made it clear the first amendment protects speech's emotive function as well as its cognitive content:

"We cannot sanction the view that the constitution, while
solicitous of the cognitive content of individual speech, has little or no regard for that emotive function which, practically speaking, may often be the more important element of the overall message sought to be communicated."

From the viewpoint of a California county law librarian:

1) It's not often for us to pay full list price for new sets, especially large one like this. If you are paying the full $1498, the law librarians at your institution are not doing their job.

2) However, it's not unusual for annual updating cost to exceed the cost of buying the set new. Quite often, I will have to cancel a subscription, wait for the semi-regular "special offer," and buy new set with one year of "free service" at discount. Of course, it's really hard to "win" this "game." The Thomsons are #9 on Forbes list for a reason.

3) The addition of the blog/wiki as part of will be interesting for librarians in term of a collection development perspective. My library is small enough that I do all the decision. But I can imagine the fun academic law librarians on all those "selection committees" will have.

4) As DDS commented, our collection development policy did call for two major treatises for each major collection areas.(Appleman/Couch, Bogert/Scott, Corbin/Williston, Moore's/Wright&Miller, Chisum/Walker, RIA/CCH for tax, etc.) It's amazing that there were no counterweight to Nimmer in this area. If only I have collection budget left ...