Property

Buy this and High Court summaries keyed to your casebook and you're set. I also used the Gilberts and Sum and Substance 1L tapes while commuting to school--the best preparation with the least effort. Property isn't the easiest 1L subject but you get the hang of it. This book does help but it's not as easy going as Civ Pro, Ks or Torts, for instance. Still, a great help considering the subject.

I am only a mediocre student at a mediocre school. But property is our thing and our property prof is our toughest--she was the top grad at Stanford or something and heads up the whole environmental movement out here in the Pacific Northwest. Property was my hardest class by far, yet I passed. I owe passing to this book, because the class was all way over my head. This book gave me what I missed in class and got me to survive the worst exam I ever took. All 1L law students need it. Anyone who is not a lawyer but finds themselves needing to understand basic principles of property law (maybe you are involved in a suit against your local zoning board and need someone to explain to you what your lawyer is saying) needs this book. In fact, if you own your own home or business, you probably need this book. I used to own my own home before I changed careers and went back to college. If I had this book back then, I would have been a lot more saavy in dealing with my obnoxious neighbors. Heck, if you rent you need this book so your landlord doesn't screw you. I think the reason some reviewers hated it is that they are the geeks of your law school class who got all A's without trying. They probably hated Cliff's Notes, too.

I am a Harvard law student and I went CRAZY preparing for exams. (as did everyone else) but a wise 3L gave me some advice that saved my life. Here is goes: Use Gilbert's on Prop to learn the black letter law of the cases you will be studying. Then use West Group's High Court Summaries to figure out in simpler terms your case. Read your cases. After you learn each subject, do the problems in Examples and Explanations to really apply your knowledge. Just working through each of the examples and seeing the subtle "shadings" of the law was enormously helpful. I know a lot of people get frusterated by this book because the examples can be difficult, but I found them to be harder than my exams which made testing a breeze. After using E & E, you may have lost sight of the forest for all the trees... So for the week before the exam, the nutshell guide should become your bible. It is clear, concise, and presents difficult but very clarifying examples of applications of laws after each law you learn. It was the perfect compact tool to "bring you back into the forest." I got an A in property (am VERY proud of myself) and it was patly because of this book. I highly suggest you buy.

Of all the property hornbooks this is the only one which will translate into a high grade on a law school exam. The Moynihan book is to small and covers only Prop 1 material. The Singer book is to voluminous, this book covers every testable subject and leaves the discussion of untestable material to the property nerds. Look no further, this hornbook is all you need to get an A in property, if you actually read it it of course.

This a a wonderful supplement to the Property Textbook by Dukeminier and Krier (published by Aspen Law and Business--same publisher as the Examples and Explations Series). It creates a good framework to support and bring together what you learn in a first year law school property class, and it helps solidify in your mind some of those amorphous property law concepts. It it not a stand alone book to teach the law.