Study Guides for 1L Classes

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) provides are computer-based, interactive tutorials that cover narrow topics of law. There are over 1,200 lessons available on 60 different topics. Current W&L Law students can click here for the Authorization Code to sign up for a free account.

The Lexis Digital Library is an e-book collection of primary and secondary legal materials, plus a range of study aids for law school subjects from LexisNexis. Contains over 700 titles on 60+ legal topics, including the Understanding, Skills & Values, and Questions & Answers study aids series. Complimentary access is provided by the W&L Law Library to current W&L Law students.

Quimbee courses include beautifully designed video lessons that break down even the toughest concepts into bite-sized, entertaining chunks. The Constitutional Law course This course provides an overview of the scope and limitations of governmental authority under the U.S. Constitution. Complimentary access is provided by the W&L Law Library. Contact lawref@wlu.edu for login credentials.

West Academic offers hundreds of study aids written by top legal scholars that are designed to help you succeed in law school, including Nutshells, Hornbooks, Black Letter Outlines, Sum and Substance Audio Lectures, and more. All are free to view online or download to your mobile device with a valid W&L Law account through the linked heading above.

Online access available through West Academic. This study aid features an innovative method of content organization. It uses a checklist format to lead students through questions they need to ask to fully evaluate the legal problem they are trying to solve. It also synthesizes the material in a way that most students are unable to do on their own, and assembles the different issues, presenting a clear guide to procedural analysis that students can draw upon when writing their exams.

Online access available through West Academic. Barron, Dienes, and Jefferson's Black Letter Outline on Constitutional Law, 11th helps law students succeed in class and on exams. This Black Letter Outline provides an accessible framework for recognizing and understanding the essential principles and issues covered in Constitutional Law courses. The book is a comprehensive study aid for use both when preparing for classes and when reviewing for exams. The authors, experts in the subject matter, provide students a much-needed guide for navigating, organizing, and assessing their own learning.

Online access available through West Academic. United States Constitutional Law guides law students, political science students, and engaged citizens through the complexities of U.S. Supreme Court doctrine--and its relationship to constitutional politics--in key areas ranging from federalism and presidential power to equal protection and substantive due process. Rather than approach constitutional law as a static structure or imagine the Supreme Court as acting in isolation from society, the book elaborates and clarifies key constitutional doctrines while also drawing on scholarship in law and political science that relates the doctrines to large social changes such as industrialization, social movements such as civil rights and second-wave feminism, and institutional tensions between governmental actors. Combining legal analysis with historical narrative and sensitivity to political context, the book provides deeper understanding of how constitutional law arises, functions, and changes in a complex, often-divided society.

Online access available through West Academic. This authoritative text provides a framework for understanding individual liberty and governmental power and the institutional role played by the Supreme Court of the United States. Coverage in this new improved edition includes all the major topics of the subject: judicial review: commerce clause and state powers: federalism: separation of powers: congressional and executive powers: and individual civil rights and civil liberties.

Online access available through West Academic. BARBRI & West Academic’s Cold Call Companion provides you with resources to critically analyze and brief a case, distill the main points of law, prepare for the kinds of questions professors may ask in class, and so much more. Included in each Cold Call Companion are: Animated case brief videos that bring the facts to life; A written case brief; Advice for prepping for class discussion; Contextual materials to offer additional color and background; Test Yourself questions; and Carefully curated sets of additional study materials to expand your knowledge of important concepts.

Relied on by students, professors, and practitioners, Erwin Chemerinsky's popular treatise clearly states the law and identifies the underlying policy issues in each area of constitutional law. Thorough coverage of the topic makes it appropriate for both beginning and advanced courses.

Online access available through West Academic. This 11th edition of Constitutional Law in a Nutshell summarizes constitutional law from Marbury v. Madison (1803), to the present. The goal has been to discuss the Supreme Court's cases in enough detail to be helpful but not to be verbose in doing so. This edition includes over thirty new cases. Among the decisions featured in this edition are two highly controversial departures from the Court's precedents. One such case is Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022), discussed in Chapter 5, where the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). In this edition, as in past editions, where there is a particularly sharp division among the Justices, the position of the dissenters is briefly described. In this edition as in previous ones, discussion of the cases is concise yet sufficiently ample to be meaningful.

Any law school graduate will tell you that when picking your outline tool you need to pick the best because your outlines are the most important study tool you will use throughout your law school career.  Developed by legendary study aid author Steve Emanuel, Emanuel® Law Outlines (ELOs) are the #1 outline choice among law students. An ELO ensures that you understand the concepts as you learn them in class and helps you study for exams throughout the semester.

Examples & Explanations for Constitutional Law: Individual Rights, Ninth edition, by Allan Ides, Christopher N. May, and Simona Grossi, provides a clearly written, comprehensive examination of constitutional doctrine pertaining to individual rights. This problem-oriented study guide provides students and teachers with a highly readable and accessible study of constitutional law. Both this book and its companion volume, Examples & Explanations for Constitutional Law: National Power and Federalism, combine detailed textual material with real-world examples and explanations that apply the relevant constitutional doctrine to specific fact patterns.

Examples & Explanations for Constitutional Law: National Power and Federalism, Ninth edition, by Christopher N. May, Allan Ides, and Simona Grossi, provides a clearly written, comprehensive examination of constitutional doctrine pertaining to national power and federalism. This problem-oriented study guide provides students and teachers with a highly readable and accessible study of constitutional law. Both this book and its companion volume, Examples & Explanations for Constitutional Law: Individual Rights, combine detailed textual material with real-world examples and explanations that apply the relevant constitutional doctrine to specific fact patterns.

Online access available through West Academic. The topics discussed in this law student study outline are the powers of federal government, including judicial power, powers of Congress, presidential power, foreign affairs power, and intergovernmental immunities. Also included are separation of powers, regulation of foreign commerce, and regulation of interstate commerce. It also covers taxation of interstate and foreign commerce, due process, equal protection, "state action" requirements, freedoms of speech, press, and association, and freedom of religion.

Glannon Guide to Constitutional Law: Individual Rights and Liberties is a concise, clear, and effective review of Individual Rights and Liberties topics in Constitutional Law that is organized around multiple-choice questions. Brief explanatory text about a topic is followed by one or two multiple-choice questions. After each question, the author explains how the correct choice was identified thereby helping the student to review course content and at the same time learn how to analyze exam questions.

Online access available through West Academic. This title contains briefs for each major case in Chemerinsky's casebook on Constitutional Law. These briefs will help you identify, understand, and absorb the core knowledge points from each case. They are followed by legal analysis, providing contextual background about each case, and connecting the case to the broader concepts developed throughout the casebook. This title also supplies case vocabulary, with definitions of new or unusual legal words found throughout the cases.

Online access available through West Academic. This title contains briefs for each major case in Choper, Dorf, Fallon, and Schauer's casebook on Constitutional Law. These briefs will help you identify, understand, and absorb the core knowledge points from each case. They are followed by legal analysis, providing contextual background about each case, and connecting the case to the broader concepts developed throughout the casebook.

Online access available through West Academic. This title contains briefs for each major case in Farber, Eskridge, Frickey, and Schacter's casebook on Constitutional Law. These briefs will help you identify, understand, and absorb the core knowledge points from each case. They are followed by legal analysis, providing contextual background about each case, and connecting the case to the broader concepts developed throughout the casebook. This title also supplies case vocabulary, with definitions of new or unusual legal words found throughout the cases.

Online access available through West Academic. This title contains briefs for each major case in Feldman and Sullivan's casebook on Constitutional Law. These briefs will help you identify, understand, and absorb the core knowledge points from each case. They are followed by legal analysis, providing contextual background about each case, and connecting the case to the broader concepts developed throughout the casebook. This title also supplies case vocabulary, with definitions of new or unusual legal words found throughout the cases.

Online access available through West Academic. This title contains well-prepared briefs for each major case in Stone’s casebook on Constitutional Law. The briefs will help readers identify, understand, and absorb the core “take away” knowledge from each case. The book includes legal analysis, providing extra tips and contextual background about each case, and connecting the case to the broader concepts being developed throughout the casebook. It also includes a case vocabulary defining new or unusual legal words.

Emanuel Law in a Flash comprehensive flash cards are ideal for reviewing legal topics point by point. Each card has a concise question on one side and an accurate answer on the reverse side. These cards are the only product of their kind. Emanuel Law in a Flash Card Features: Only product of its kind Test your knowledge of black letter law Apply the law to hypothetical examples. Use individually or in group sessions Use them anywhere, anytime.

Online access available through West Academic. The authors, recognized authorities for over a third of a century, provide succinct and authoritative coverage of the major principles in modern American constitutional law. This book is a shortened version based on the authors' hornbook (popular with students) and their six-volume treatise (popular with judges, practitioners, and scholars). It analyzes the constitutional issues studied today, and discusses the origins of judicial review and federal jurisdiction, federal commerce and spending powers, state powers in light of the dormant Commerce Clause, the war power, freedom of speech and religion, equal protection, due process, and other important individual rights and liberties.

Online access available through West Academic. This book offers an overview of federalism, the separation of powers, and related matters of constitutional structure. It covers such topics as: the lawmaking powers of the national government; federalism-based "external" constraints on congressional power; federalism-based limits on state authority; structural constitutional principles concerning governmental entities other than the states; and the horizontal allocation of power across the three branches of the federal government.

Online access available through the Lexis Digital Library. This popular study guide for an introductory constitutional law course includes approximately 200 multiple-choice and short-answer questions arranged topically for targeted practice in applying the concepts as the material is covered during the semester, plus an additional two dozen questions comprising a comprehensive "practice exam." The multiple-choice questions include detailed explanations of the answer and the basis, considering the Supreme Court's past decisions and the Constitution's text and structure, for choosing that response over the other three options. Each short-answer question is designed to be answered in less than 15 minutes and includes a thoughtful, complete, and concise model answer.

Online access available through the 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."

Online access available through West Academic. Designed to make the study of constitutional law simple, clear, and convenient, this text provides an overview of constitutional law plus a judicial review, including its limitations. Provides constitutional basis for the exercise of federal judicial power, national legislative power, sources and limitations of congressional power, and the separation of powers. Explores the relationship between branches of federal government, state power to regulate commerce, and constitutional limitations. Examines civil rights, retroactive legislation, procedural and substantive due process, equal protection, and freedom of speech and religion. Also addresses cruel and unusual punishment.

Online access available through West Academic. This efficient book takes the complex subject matter of Constitutional Law and makes it easier to understand and digest. World-renowned Villanova Law Dean and Professor Mark Alexander carefully explains the key concepts involved in Con Law and also brings it home with straightforward explanations of why you are reading and discussing the cases you are assigned every day. The subject matter runs the gamut from Marbury v. Madison and the structural side of the course to Due Process and Equal Protection. In addition, he provides exam-taking tips, and general words of guidance on how to make it through law school, and beyond, to a rewarding legal career.

Online access available through West Academic. Sum & Substance Audio Series allows you to assimilate the essentials of the course at your convenience – listen while working, commuting, exercising or just relaxing. The information and ideas you struggled with previously are now brought to life simply and succinctly. The Audio provides Quick Reference Indexing, allowing you to quickly locate every topic in the entire recording. Also provided are exam tips to maximize your performance and Lifetime guarantee. These Audios are time saving, convenient and effective.

Online access available through the Lexis Digital LIbrary. Understanding Constitutional Law is a succinct but comprehensive treatment of constitutional law topics typically encountered in a first-year constitutional law class. The book provides the current black letter law doctrines alongside the historical background needed to understand them and the major lines of dissenting thought. It explains the methodological approaches the Court has taken to the topics it covers and is interspersed with commentary to help readers understand both those approaches and the rules they generate.