How A Student's Guide to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Offers Your Students a Learning Edge: *Current Text:A Student's Guide supplies what your students need-the text of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (as amended through December 1, 2016), the frequently-consulted sections of the U.S. Judiciary Code, and the text (with revision history) of the U.S. Constitution. In short, a handy, reliable Supplement for your students' exploration of Civil Procedure.*PLUS...Commentary on the Rules and How They Work: Most Rules Supplements available to students stop there, with just an austere reprinting of these texts. But what students often find challenging in studying Civil Procedure-and what is less likely to be found in either the casebook or a conventional study aid-is a dissection of language and meaning of each Rule, subpart-by-subpart. Students may feel themselves comfortable with "big-picture" concepts addressed by the Rules, but less comfortable on the Rules' practical application. The commentary in A Student's Guide helps fill that gap and manage student apprehension.
Treating the Rules in order, students are first given the full Rule text, followed by the "Purpose & Scope" of that Rule, followed by the "Core Concept" of each Rule subpart, followed lastly by extensive practitioner-developed analyses and discussions of that Rule subpart in application. It is a level of Rule-based analysis rarely found in student materials.*PLUS...An Overview of Critical Federal Practice Concepts: Because many of the related core concepts of federal practice are an amalgam of law found in Rules, statutes, constitutional provisions, and case law, A Student's Guide bridges that gulf with quick, orienting discussions of central practice concepts like personal jurisdiction, in rem jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, removal, venue, forum non conveniens, the Erie Doctrine, and claim and issue preclusion. These distillations allow students to acquire a broad view of how the Rules fit within those related practice contexts.*PLUS...Citations to Interpretative Case Law: Also unlike most other Rules Supplements, A Student's Guide offers students a strong introduction to the interpretative case law analyzing the Rules and their subparts.
This, then, converts this Rules Supplement into a "finding aid," of sorts, for students as they work through applied problems in the context of the Rules. The case law is extensive (though introductory), and very current. This edition of A Student's Guide, for example, contains scores of citations to primary authorities-including many decided just within the past year. This new edition also contains fulsome discussions of both Twombly and Iqbal, as well as the Supreme Court's other recent opinions on Civil Procedure concepts.*PLUS...A Helpful Orientation to the Rulemaking Process: A Student's Guide also includes a brief orientation for students to the process of federal rulemaking, how the Rules originally came into existence, and how they are amended.