Civil Procedure

Students deem Civil Procedure to be one of the hardest classes in law school for good reason. Doctrines from personal jurisdiction to res judicata are difficult to apply to exam fact patterns, and the policies underlying the federal rules can be difficult to grasp. The course is a complex hybrid of common law, statutes, rules, and some constitutional doctrine.

For the first time, Oxford University Press equips students with an accessible guide to acing this most challenging of law school tests. In Civil Procedure: Model Problems and Outstanding Answers, Scott Dodson helps students demonstrate their knowledge of civil procedure in the structured and sophisticated manner that professors expect on law school exams. This book includes clear introductions to the major topics in civil procedure, provides hypotheticals that students can expect to see on an exam, and offers model answers to those hypotheticals. Professor Dodson then gives students the opportunity to evaluate their own work with a comprehensive self-analysis section. This book prepares students by challenging them to use the law they learn in class while also explaining the best way to express an answer on law school exams.

This second edition has been updated to reflect recent changes to the federal rules of civil procedure. It incorporates new paradigm cases, including Wal-Mart, Goodyear, and McIntyre. The second edition also reflects the new rule and statutory amendments, including the Federal Courts Jurisdictions and Venue Clarification Act of 2011.

Scott Dodson is a Professor of Law at University of California Hastings College of the Law. He is a graduate of Duke Law School, where he was an editor of Duke Law Journal. He also has written over twenty articles on jurisdiction and procedure, appearing in such journals as Stanford Law Review, Michigan Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review.