Customer Reviews

Property Examples & Explanations, 3rd Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great supplement to use for practice hypos and explaining difficult areas of property law. Out of all of the E&E books, this has been by far the most examples and is much more conceptual than usual. If you like E&E for in-depth coverage this may work well for you. The organization is very simple, going through several topics and then presenting examples of 3-8 lines with follow up explanations of the examples. That is the entire book, no checklists, flowcharts, or exam practice questions at the end.

I used various supplements for this class. Before buying all of them, I would go to your law library and look them over, use them for your class and see which work best for you. My biggest mistake was thinking by using supplements I would learn less or get screwed up. Professors tell you whether they like supplements or not, but if you use them to prepare for class, still at least go through the cases and take NOTES from what professors say, you will do far better.

I will explain the supplements I used and how I studied for class and finals. In the both semesters I read Understanding Property Law to get a more in-depth explanation of materials I had difficulty with. Before each class assignment I read through Emanuel Law Outlines: Property, Dukeminier/Krier Edition for my casebook (casebook Property) and then used it to work through the assigned reading. After class I quickly ran through my notes and organized them a bit into a rough outline (10-15 mins). Then on the weekend I would work on hypos using E&E and Siegel's Property: Essay and Multiple-Choice Questions and Answers from the library just to get some extra hypos.

In the first semester, upon reaching the RAP, I used a great CHEAP (get used since only use a couple weeks) workbook A student's guide to estates in land and future interests: Text, examples, problems and answers (Student guide series). This definitely made things much easier because it is presented in a way that children can understand. The RAP seems complicated, but it is actually quite simple, which is why this was so useful.

CrunchTime Property 2009 (The Crunchtime Series) is essentially a non-keyed version of the full Emanuel outline, minus the in-depth coverage. The full, (especially if keyed) outline is definitely worth the extra money.

These books collectively were not necessary, but they helped. If short on cash, the books from most helpful to least are your required casebook, Emanuel (especially if keyed), Understanding Property, E&E, and Seigels. However, many prefer E&E for explanation over Understanding.

See my other reviews regarding the books mentioned above. However, only the first couple paragraphs will be different.

Good Luck, I will try and answer any comments!

I've read some of the reviews and all I can say is, don't let them persuade you not to buy this book! I can only speak for the third edition (perhaps earlier ones weren't as good). All I know is, I was COMPLETELY lost in my property class, absolutely clueless about the estate system, the rule against perpetuities, and almost everything else. I stopped reading for the class and stopped paying attention because I just found the material boring and difficult to follow; I was just lost. But, I've taught myself Property Law from this study aid! About 6 weeks before the final, I started reading this E&E and now, after outlining the material contained in it, I understand estates, perpetuities, everything! I can do all of the practice problems I've tried and I really know what's going on. I'm very confident going into the final that I will do well and that's saying something after how lost I was. It's all thanks to this book. The explanations are clear, the examples really cemented things in my head, the material is presented in a logical manner. I just can't imagine how stressed I'd be without this book. I looked at the Gilbert's for Property, but I just don't like the outline format, there's not enough meat to it. I like the E&E because there's more substance, more to wrap my head around; it seems more thorough than the Gilbert's. Don't hesitate to buy this study aid, no matter how lost you are in property.

My property law professors final exam was open book. So I highlighted the important terms in the index and copied some of my outline into the margins and blank pages of this book. I used this book as my outline during the final and got an A-. My prof had a combination of short answer, multiple choice and long essays. Using the index to look up short answer topics saved me a lot of time and I was very accurate.

Extremely helpful.
Wouldn't have been able to take exam without it.
Provides a very comprehensive view of property law.

Overall, this book is poor. Not truly abysmal, but of of a generally poor nature.

While Burke and Snoe make decent work of explaining the law of Property, and showing examples, the book really needs a better editor.

In virtually every chapter, one of the fact patterns didn't make it through the author's revisioning without gaining or losing an appendage. Names will be referenced in the answer ("explanation") to a question, but that name is not in the fact pattern. Example: In the answer to Chapter 28, question 1E, there is a reference to a Bryan and his reliance on a reservation in the easement to Dan. There's no reference to Bryan in Question 1's fact pattern, and it's not particularly easy to see who they meant to refer to.

This is not an isolated incident. It's a regular occurrence in the book. And it doesn't inspire much confidence, since I'm using this book to finesse my comprehension of some of the finer points of my Property class.

Their policy questions are incredibly vague, as well. I mean, I'm not expecting to be handed the answer in the prompt, but some idea of what I'm expected to be thinking about would help. In addition, and this may be a criticism of the nature of property in general, the book occasionally tells you to "Come back when you've learned X," where X is something from a future chapter. If I need to know both W and X to answer a question, put it in X's latter chapter, not W's former chapter. It's better to refer back to something than to refer forward.

I don't have another Property guide to compare this to, I'm only comparing this to my other two E&E books - Glannon's Civil Procedure and Glannon's Torts. Those were excellently done.

Burke and Snoe don't do a bad job, they just need someone to spot-check all the errors in their book.

I am using the 3rd edition Property E&E to prepare for my finals and it is appalling how terrible this one is. I'm surprised that many other reviewers are giving this book good reviews. I agree completely with the previous negative reviews. The authors use incoherent sentences, do not flesh out the topics in enough depth, and ask questions which cannot be answered solely based on the explained content. Wish I had time to go find a better alternative...

Comprehensive and easy to read and uderstand. Many examples and scenarios for each topics. I recommend it for every law studend.

Great product! Really breaks the material down into manageable portions, with the questions progressing in difficulty. Fast shipping. I highly recommend this product.

This book is AMAZING!! my teacher's future estates section of his textbook is complete gibberish, and this book makes understanding so, so much better! and the hypos with detailed answers are really great for study group reviewing before finals :)

The "dense" part of the title shouldn't really be taken as a negative as of course a book about property is very dense. In fact when possible the author does attempt to make the reading enjoyable. Sometimes he succeeds sometimes not so much. I believe the book is very helpful in assisting law students with their regular text books. It has many good examples after each chapter and each chapter is usually around 10-15 pages which is not too demanding if you take it one day at a time.
If this book could be improved it would have more overarching examples that include material from several chapters, so the reader must choose what is important rather than look for the specific thing talked about in the preceding chapter.