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Full-Text Articles in Property Law and Real Estate
Real + Imaginary = Complex: Toward A Better Property Course, James Grimmelmann
Real + Imaginary = Complex: Toward A Better Property Course, James Grimmelmann
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
“Property” in most law schools means real property: the dense, illogical, and special-purpose body of land law. But this is wrong: property also comes in personal, intangible, and intellectual flavors—all of them more important to modern lawyers than land. Real property is deeply unrepresentative of property law, and focusing our teaching on it sells the subject short. A better property course would fully embrace these other forms of property as real property’s equals. Escaping the traditional but labyrinthine classifications of real property frees teachers to bring out the underlying conceptual coherence and unity of property law. The resulting course is …
History As Ideology In The Basic Property Course, Gregory S. Alexander
History As Ideology In The Basic Property Course, Gregory S. Alexander
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Why has history played such a prominent role in the basic property course in the twentieth century? Such a loaded question requires some explanation. Legal history is doubtless used in all the first-year common-law courses, but I have the impression that since Langdell's time it has been more conspicuous in property than in the other basic courses. At least let us provisionally accept this rather dogmatic assertion in order to examine the more interesting questions: what function has the historical perspective served in property, and what other function might history serve in the course?