I’ve been asked to step in and teach a 1L elective course on law and economics this spring, covering for a colleague who has taken a high level economics post in the administration. I have to pick a textbook very soon. The course is for second semester 1Ls, and my goal is to attract 1Ls who did not major in business or economics as undergrads, and make it comprehensible to them.
That means that I don’t want it to be super-math heavy. It also needs to focus around the 1L courses that they’ve been taking – antitrust and IP and my own corporate finance won’t work, because they come in later years, and so it needs to focus around contracts, tort, property, criminal law. In addition, it is only a two unit, once a week class, so it can’t cover vast swathes of material, and in fact very far from it. I’ve never taught the basic, intro law and econ class before, and I’ve never taught 1Ls, so it should be an exciting pedagogical experience – for me, at least! I’d be grateful for suggestions in two categories:
- Main text – please tell me why this would be a useful textbook, given my constraints above.
- Supplemental texts, such as short introductions on game theory, statistics, supplemental readings on law and econ, etc., but specifically with law students in mind.