Jumpstart Constitutional Law: Reading and Understanding Constitutional Law Cases

Unlike Torts and Contracts, in which the facts are relatively consistent, cases that arise under the Constitution spring from a vast array of activities and appear to have little or no common thread.  

Shedding light on the threshold issues and substantive questions common to all constitutional law cases, Jumpstart Constitutional Law: Reading and Understanding Constitutional Law Cases, brings it all into focus. 

Key to constructing cogent answers on a Constitutional Law exam, Jethro K. Lieberman’s straightforward approach teaches students how to spot the issues and respond to the relevant questions in any constitutional law case.

Jumpstart Constitutional Law features:

• ·         Perspective—A tour of the American Constitution from a bird’s-eye-view
• ·         Understanding threshold issues
• Who may decide Constitutional disputes?
• Under what circumstances may a court decide a case? 
• Must the court take and answer a constitutional question in a proper case?
• ·         Identifying substantive issues
• Determining the scope of governmental powers 
• Federalism, and the relationship between federal and state powers 
• Constitutional restraints that limit the exercise of governmental power
• ·         Interpreting the Constitution
• Using tests to determine the limits of power and the extent of rights
• Tools of analysis for interpreting the Constitution 
• The role of precedent and change
• ·         Get into training—real preparation for taking the Constitutional Law exam
• A program for effective studying
• Sample constitutional law exam questions and answers
• Exam-taking strategies

What are law students saying about Jumpstart Constitutional Law?

“At the beginning of the semester in Con Law, I was overwhelmed by what was a very unfamiliar field of law and required a different way of reviewing cases than my other first-year courses. I wish I’d had Jumpstart Constitutional Law. It teaches you how to take a heavy, dense amount of material and break it down into important bare facts.”—M.C.

“As a 1L, you are constantly overwhelmed by terms you thought you knew only to discover their legal meaning is entirely foreign (e.g., “standing” and “ripeness”). Having Jumpstart Con Law’s mini-con law dictionary with its simple definitions will be extremely helpful to students.”—KAB

“Con Law is a difficult subject. For example, the 14th Amendment has so many tests, restrictions, definitions, and concepts that it was difficult for me to keep track of which one applied where and what test to use. Jumpstart Constitutional Law separates out and describes the different due processes, the time-place-manner test, notice, hearing, state action, and the scrutiny tests. The book would have provided me with a good foundation and I’d have been better prepared for our class discussions.”—CM

“I particularly like how Jumpstart Constitutional Law begins with an overview of how to approach Con Law and how all the seemingly unrelated pieces fit together.  This book would have been a fantastic read for me prior to taking Con Law. It takes a bird’s eye view that I think many people miss when studying Con Law. Many times, my classmates and I would get caught up in the nitty-gritty of all the balancing tests and would miss out on the bigger picture. Had I read Jumpstart Con Law prior to studying justiciability, for example, I would have caught on to the concept quicker.” —CH