Welcome to Torts and to the study of law

What is it about?  As a descriptive matter torts is about a certain type of claim: that one who has acted unreasonably toward another, causing harm, may be held responsible for the damage suffered and compelled to pay compensation at the demand of the victim.  Courts judge the validity of such claims and the nature and extent of damage for which the victim can demand compensation be paid by the tort-feasor.


Most tort claims arise from negligent conduct, but some are imposed even though an actor behaved reasonably.  We call that strict liability.  Intentional harms may entitle the injured party to both compensatory damages (to make good the loss) and punitive damages (to punish and deter such conduct in the future).


And Welcome to Law School


Speaking, writing, interrogating, critical reading are key skills for lawyers.  Thanks to  John Houseman as the stern professor in The Paper Chase   many fear speaking in class.  This won't be that kind of experience.  But I hope you will each have the opportunity to develop some of those skills in our class.  In that vein HERE is Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, on Notes for a Law Lecture in 1850.  An excerpt on diligence and speech is below:

I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. 

Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can then be done. When you bring a common-law suit, if you have the facts for doing so, write the declaration at once. If a law point be involved, examine the books, and note the authority you rely on upon the declaration itself, where you are sure to find it when wanted. The same of defenses and pleas. In business not likely to be litigated, -- ordinary collection cases, foreclosures, partitions, and the like, -- make all examinations of titles, and note them, and even draft orders and decrees in advance. 

This course has a triple advantage; it avoids omissions and neglect, saves your labor when once done, performs the labor out of court when you have leisure, rather than in court when you have not.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.