Book Review: Cases on Commercial and Investment Paper

Abstract

We have recently become very critical of the traditional law school curriculum. We expect the author of a modem casebook not only to give us the cases and materials which make up his field, but also to provide justification for teaching the material covered in his casebook as a separate course. Such justification is supplied if the cases and other materials collected enable the student to understand and interpret sectors of social life in relation to legal institutions. A casebook on negotiable paper has to convince us that there is a stronger reason than tradition for giving a course on negotiable paper. The only good reason is that the material presents an adequate picture of the financial organization of our society. Measured by this test, the confines of the traditional course on negotiable paper become highly problematical. Since bills, notes and checks are today "used as devices in transactions which create and transfer deposit currency," a good argument can be made for the plan to incorporate negotiable instruments in a larger course unit devoted to commercial bank credit. Underhill Moore's promise to present us with a new casebook arranged according to this scheme, which stresses the significant fact that today the "manufacture of credit" lies in the hands of commercial banks, opens up a fascinating prospect.