Study Guides for Law Student Success

"Available to students & faculty on Lexis Digital Library."
"​The overarching objective of Understanding the First Amendment is to facilitate student learning efficiency and academic success. Toward this end, it focuses upon core subject matter that is likely to be tested in a law school examination or on the bar examination. The book also provides tools that enable students to organize the course and their understanding in a way that enhances retention. The beginning of each chapter highlights key points of coverage. The end of each chapter indicates essential points to remember. The book strikes a balance between comprehensiveness and selectivity, thus providing students with assurance that they know enough, know it well, but are not overwhelmed by details that are unduly esoteric or irrelevant to their performance needs."

Available to students & faculty on Lexis Digital Library.
"The overarching objective of Understanding the First Amendment is to facilitate student learning efficiency and academic success. Toward this end, it focuses upon core subject matter that is likely to be tested in a law school examination or on the bar examination. The book also provides tools that enable students to organize the course and their understanding in a way that enhances retention. The beginning of each chapter highlights key points of coverage. The end of each chapter indicates essential points to remember. The book strikes a balance between comprehensiveness and selectivity, thus providing students with assurance that they know enough, know it well, but are not overwhelmed by details that are unduly esoteric or irrelevant to their performance needs."

Available to students & staff on Lexis Digital Library.
"Understand better what you're learning in First Amendment or Constitutional Law class and prepare effectively for exams by applying concepts as you learn them. This study guide includes over 150 multiple-choice and short-answer questions arranged topically for ease of use during the semester, plus an additional set of questions comprising a comprehensive "practice exam." For each multiple-choice question, Professors Weaver and Araiza provide a detailed answer that indicates which of four options is the best answer and explains thoroughly why that option is better than the other three options. Each short-answer question is designed to be answered in fifteen minutes or less. For these questions, Professors Weaver and Araiza provide a thoughtful, comprehensive, yet brief model answer. The eBook versions of this title feature links to Lexis Advance for further legal research options."

Available to students & faculty on Lexis Digital Library.
"The Skills & Values Series is an innovative hybrid series of subject-specific, practice-oriented books and online materials supported by Web Courses (powered by Blackboard 9.1). The series is designed as a tool for professors to teach practical and analytical skills that can help students serve future clients competently, skillfully, and in an ethical manner.
Skills & Values: The First Amendment allows students to experience the connection between theory, doctrine, and practice in First Amendment law. The exercises provide an opportunity for studying First Amendment concepts from the perspective of a practicing attorney who must not only know the law, but also employ lawyering skills and values - such as legal strategy, factual development, advocacy, counseling, drafting, problem solving, and ethical principles - in zealously representing a client.
Each chapter in Skills & Values: The First Amendment addresses a specific topic covered in most First Amendment law school courses. The chapters begin with an introduction to help bridge the gap between the actual practice of law and the doctrine and theory studied in class. Students will then have the opportunity to engage in active, "hands on" learning by working through a stand-alone exercise that simulates a real-life legal dilemma. The exercises are as authentic as possible, incorporating materials such as legal pleadings, motions, correspondence, judicial opinions, statutes, discovery materials, and deposition excerpts. The self-assessment tool included at the end of each chapter suggests ways that a practicing attorney might have approached each exercise. It is not meant to provide "the answer," but to identify issues and strategies students should have considered in order to effectively represent a client.
The topics covered in Skills & Values: The First Amendment and companion Web Course include:
Incitement and Illegal Activity
Obscenity and Sexually Explicit Material
The Fighting Words Doctrine
Government and Commercial Speech
Time, Place and Manner Restrictions
Public Employee and Public School Student's Speech Rights
Freedom of Expressive Association
The Political Process and the First Amendment
The Newsgathering Function and Freedom of the Press
The Establishment and Free Exercises Clauses
Vagueness and Overbreadth
The companion Web Course also contains:
forms to assist students to complete some of the exercises
video files
links to some of the key cases
multiple choice quiz questions
supplemental materials designed to increase students' understanding of both doctrine and practice.
The text in the book will prompt readers to access the online Web Course materials when the materials are relevant to an exercise."

This product provides a short and readable source for individuals interested in First Amendment law and communications law. It is divided into four parts: the history, methodology, and philosophical foundations of the First Amendment; topics such as First Amendment issues that arise in connection with matters as varied as regulations affecting union dues, the speech of high school students, and what flags can fly on city hall flagpoles; issues in First Amendment law such as the public forum doctrine, the compelled speech doctrine, and the free expression rights of government employees; and the text, history, and theory of the religion clauses, chronicling the ongoing battle in the Supreme Court between accommodationists and separationists. The Sixth Edition brings the book up to date with modern First Amendment jurisprudence, including the Internet and the problem of hate speech, electoral spending, and other topics covered by recent Supreme Court cases and discussions.

This concise guide breaks down a complicated topic—the First Amendment—and makes it understandable and fun. The book walks briskly through cases, rules, and theories to draw a reader-friendly road map of the First Amendment. Two law school deans and First Amendment enthusiasts, Bob Power and Mark Alexander, synthesize principles with memorable examples and a sharp wit. Their analysis reveals the common sense behind much First Amendment law, and at the same time identifies some of its flaws and inconsistencies. The book addresses the deep historic roots as well as current problems such as campaign finance, hate speech, and electronic communications. It is equally useful as a general guide as it is for preparing for class and for exams (including the bar!).

"Written by a leading national scholar, Farber's coverage of the First Amendment is clear and incisive. All of the major areas of this complex doctrine are reviewed, including the religion clauses. The text also probes theories of free speech and debates over controversial issues such as campaign finance, hate speech, and religious exemptions."

"This Stories title will enrich First Amendment courses and help students appreciate the premises that animate the cases and the values that are at stake in religious-liberty and free-speech controversies, rarely captured fully by doctrinal presentations. This collection offers carefully selected and rich cases that involve real stories, which can themselves serve as points-of-entry to the many great, ongoing debates that run through our free speech and religious liberty traditions."

" Brownstein and Jacobs's Global Issues in Freedom of Speech and Religion: Cases and Materials is a companion volume to existing materials. Designed to assist professors in introducing issues of international and comparative law, this title is ideal for use in educational courses that address: •The First Amendment•Law and religion•Individual rights•Other topics dealing with free speech and religious liberty In order to make companion materials understandable and accessible to students as well as to professors who have not taught the materials before, this title: •Includes case excerpts, helpful background materials, and notes•Is set out in a structure that mirrors U.S. constitutional jurisprudence."