This innovative casebook stresses civil procedure as part of the litigation process—a publicly funded system of dispute resolution. It bridges the gap in students’ experience that can lead them to feel that civil procedure is unconnected to the “real world” by including many problems and hypotheticals which are intended to make the material more concrete. The authors use notes and questions that explore the strategic and ethical choices that real lawyers face. The notes also include international and comparative material.

One of the keys to the book’s success is the “Introduction and Integration” section at the beginning of each chapter, which provides an overview and indicates how the section fits with other topics. Students sometimes miss the richness of the course because they fail to see how its various aspects fit together—they may come away with a knowledge of individual trees but not an overall sense of the forest. The “Introduction and Integration” sections help minimize this risk.