law practice

Full Disclosure: I had Epstein as a professor (though not for torts) and like him personally. The critical review below is unfair. Epstein's book is certainly slanted towards a law and economics approach to torts, but it is hardly the ideological screed that the review makes it out to be. Epstein often presents cases taking approaches with which he would probably not agree and acknowledges when his own views differ from the majority opinion (which, as noted below, happens frequently). Especially when presenting arguments in the notes, Epstein almost always cites case law and law review articles contradicting him. It is true that the book probably does not spend enough time addressing reasoning that is not based in law and economics, but all case books have their flaws and this is the only signicant one I can find with this book. On the other side, the editing is very good, the chapters present the concepts in an intuitive order, and the notes to the cases were among the most interesting that I read in law school. Moreover, for students who are struggling to grasp the material, there is the Epstein treatise, which follows the book closely and explains the topics in a more straightforward manner (obviously at the cost of some the inherent complexity of the issues, but it makes a good supplement). Finally, as between a book that emphasizes law and economics in torts and one that emphasizes, say, corrective justice, it seems more valuable to have one that emphasizes law and econ because this is the less intuitive mode of analysis of the subject for most students. In a socratically taught class, it's likely that students will raise corrective justice issues on their own, when these can be compared with the material from the book, but it is less probable that students will fully calculate the economic ramifications of a precedential decision's effect on future actors' incentives unless they are encouraged to think this way when reading the cases. In sum, although the book would probably improve if it were not quite so heavily weighted towards law and economics, it is still a well edited, intuitively structured casebook with note material that should engage and interest students in the subject.

Epstein consistently fails to distinguish between the law as applied by real courts and the law as Epstein would like it to be. On the rare occassion that he does acknowledge that his views are not law, he refuses to present the arguments in favor of the majority rule fairly or objectively, often characterizing a court's allegedly faulty application of a rule as a mistake, or worse. The vast majority of Epstein's views in any area of law, including the law of torts, are way out on the fringe of American jurisprudence, and he does the reader a disservice by pretending otherwise.

Richard Epstein's Cases and Materials on Torts is easily the best casebook I used in law school. The cases are well edited, and the prose clear and tight. The notes after and before the cases are clear and thought provoking, but more importantly, let the reader know why the cases have been included in the book. While the book is heavily slanted toward a law and economics approach to tort law, I recommend this book for any professor who wants a systematic and clear approach to tort law that students will appreciate