We have already covered three units of material in federal courts, and our practice problem is set for about two weeks from today. So it’s time to update my links to the podcasts for those units. I’ve made the written versions for these three available on TWEN. Feel free to take a look at them to review what we have studied so far.
I also have had several conversations with people about how challenging this material is. These cases and the subject matter are tough. And our work in class focuses on synthesizing rules and applying them to difficult factual scenarios the way you will have to in practice. That’s a skill that no one is born with. Don’t be afraid to look to sources that have synthesized the material for you–don’t do it instead of reading the cases because then you might not understand or be able to use the rules as well. You may notice that some of that synthesis and explanation comes after the cases in our textbook. Don’t be afraid to look at that first before you read the cases–even if it’s not assigned in a particular day’s reading. Additionally, I can’t recommend Erwin Chemerinsky’s treatise on Federal Jurisdiction highly enough. It’s on reserve in the library. It’s much easier to read and makes more sense of everything than almost anyone else I’ve ever read.
That said, here are the summaries I’ve prepared for you. Let me know if you need me to cover anything in more detail or if you have questions.
