Hearsay

I've camped out in the law school library to study today, something I haven't done since the first few months of my first year. I just haven't been able to make myself work at home, for whatever reason.

I'm chugging through Evidence, and I think I've uncovered a big source of my displeasure. The casebook is terrible! First of all, the authors (Waltz and Park) wrote nothing in the book (except when they quote other articles they've written). It is simply a compilation of cases and treatises strung together with the occasional hypothetical inserted for good measure. The chapter on hearsay begins without any introduction to the basic definitions, simply launching straight into the marginalia and controversies. I just read 25 pages which literally encompassed 20 different cases and treatise excerpts, none of them stating "Hearsay is...."

Fortunately, my professor (Graham Lilly) wrote a hornbook on the subject, and it is a true pleasure to read. Evidence really is quite fascinating, now that I understand it.

I love the hearsay rule, if for no other reason than that it seems like a skilled attorney ought to be able to get just about any evidence in through some loophole or exception. And now that I've read Lilly's explanation of the rule itself, I can appreciate the casebook's detour into the gray areas.

So the moral of the story is that one ought not be led astray by a shitty casebook. Find a good supplement or hornbook, and discover whatever pleasure is available in the subject.