How should students begin their legal education? Professor Peter Strauss's innovative materials build on a Columbia Law School commitment reaching back to Karl

In an ideal world, the laws of Congress--known as federal statutes--would always be clearly worded and easily understood by the judges tasked with interpreting

Including a discussion of legislative powers, constitutional regulations relative to the forms of legislation and to legislative procedure.

We are capable of writing crisp yet flexible laws, but Solan explains that difficult cases result when the ways in which our cognitive and linguistic faculties

This book seeks to explain to the beginner how to understand and interpret statutes. The book starts with an explanation of the nature and purpose of an Act of