About the Book
A Documentary Companion to Storming the Court
Bring Litigation to Life for Your Students
Brandt Goldstein, New York Law School
Rodger Citron, Touro Law Center
Molly Beutz Land, New York Law School
2009. 304 pages. ISBN: 978-0-7355-6317-9.
About the Book
A Documentary Companion to Storming the Court uses key litigation documents to guide the reader through the high-profile lawsuit chronicled in Storming the Court (Scribner 2005), an award-winning nonfiction title by Brandt Goldstein that tells the story of the case filed by human rights lawyers and Yale law students on behalf of Haitian refugees detained at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Following in the tradition of books such as The Buffalo Creek Disaster and A Civil Action, Storming the Court-named one of the ten best nonfiction books of the year by Kirkus Reviews-is an engaging, easy-to-read account of a complex civil trial in which law students played many of the key roles.
Meticulously documented to make moving between the original book and the companion trouble-free, this lively, accessible book will provoke energetic discussion and debate among your students. Suitable for use in any Civil Procedure course, the documentary companion:
- uses examples from the real case to illustrate a wide array of important legal concepts, particularly those taught in first-year civil procedure courses
- includes key litigation documents and other original materials from the case along with notes, comments, hypotheticals, class exercises, and questions that serve as excellent teaching tools
- features new interviews with lawyers and law students from Storming the Court, as well as photos of key characters from the litigation and the naval base at Guantánamo Bay (including previously unpublished military photographs)
Following a complex trial step-by-step brings litigation to life for your students, helps them understand what the concepts and rules look like in practice, and empowers them by showing what a group of determined students working with experienced lawyers were able to accomplish in a high-stakes lawsuit against the U.S. government. A Documentary Companion to Storming the Court takes a gripping book and turns it into a powerful teaching tool. Because of its comprehensive coverage of depositions and trial, it is also well-suited for adoption in Trial Advocacy or Advanced Civil Procedure courses.
