This semester, Distinguished University Professor Lea VanderVelde is teaching employment law with her new casebook, Modern Employment Law in Time and Place published by West publishing just last month.
This book is the result of some 30 years of teaching during which Professor VanderVelde taught from every book on the market. By this method, Professor VanderVelde was able to select the best parts from all the books to include in her casebook.
Professor VanderVelde was one of the first law professors to recognize that employment law had to be taught as a different course than labor law and she participated in the first treatise on the subject as well as the ALI Restatement of Employment Law. VanderVelde’s casebook is unique in that it is the only casebook to explicitly focus on the power imbalance in the employment relation, rather than on contract. It is also unique in explaining current law’s contingency by highlighting how each of today’s doctrines emerged in time and place. The book references recent trends taking place in the past two years, such as the importance of certain kinds of jobs, customs, such as work from home, and employee expectations.
This semester, the book is only available to Iowa law students, but it will be available to other schools nationally in January, 2023.