Hames and Ekern's "Introduction to Law," 2e will teach students the basic legal concepts related to substantive and procedural law, introduces them to cases, statutes, and the constitution, and develops their legal vocabulary and analytical skills. A new chapter on constitutional law, expanded coverage of employment and environmental law, and information on technology makes this an excellent resource for any Introduction to Law course for all disciplines of study including pre-law, legal studies, and business programs. Using this text, your students will learn how to develop their own critical-thinking skills, read high-interest cases, expand their legal vocabulary and discuss case law and issues impacting today's legal system

The study of law attracts students for a variety of reasons. Many see the law as a career choice, as a lawyer, a paralegal, or some other related professional. Some are interested because of personal dealings with the legal system, while others are interested simply because it is a fascinating subject. Whatever reasons motivate the student, an introductory class in law must accomplish certain basic objectives. Students must develop an understanding of the organization of the legal system. They must comprehend some basic legal concepts related to procedural and substantive law. Students should also4be introduced to cases, statutes, and the Constitution, the sources of all of our laws. While students in an introduction to Law class should not be forced to learn about the law entirely through reading cases, some experience in reading cases is essential to learning about the law. Our years of teaching paralegal students have convinced us that any introductory law course must begin with and emphasize the development of a strong legal vocabulary. Also important is the opportunity to use and develop the analytic skills so important to any legal professional. Our goal, therefore, in writing this text is to help instructors by providing beginning students with a book that keeps their interest while providing an overview of the organization and operation of the legal system, as well as an introduction to some of the basic concepts of the substantive and procedural law. More important, however, we have included several features that give students the opportunity to develop a strong legal vocabulary and to build their analytic skills. THE SECOND EDITION OFINTRODUCTION TO LAW Feedback from instructors and students who use this text convinces us that the basic organization and features of this textbook are successful. Students have especially appreciated the extensive vocabulary definitions in the margin, the interesting cases, and the wide use of common hypothetical cases to explain the application of legal principles. These features remain in the text. However, the law has never been, nor will it ever be, a static entity. Any useful textbook dealing with the law must reflect these changes. As a result, where applicable, the law has been updated. Other changes reflect the changing face of the legal system, as well as our desire to provide students with more practice building analytic skills and more exposure to the area of legal ethics. In the last few years, the most important changes in the legal system have come about because of the developments in technology, including the Internet. We have endeavored to reflect those changes in the second edition ofIntroduction to Law.Each chapter now contains two new features: Technology Corner, listing the Web addresses and names of Internet sites applicable to the chapter material; and Featured Web Site, an overview of a helpful Internet site along with exercises requiring the student to "go online." Developments in technology resulted in our completely revising two chapters appearing in the first edition--"Law Practice: Day to Day Procedures" and "Law and Technology." Clearly, these are no longer separate subjects and are therefore combined in a new chapter, "Technology and Law Practice: A Paralegal Perspective." The relevance of technology to the different aspects of substantive and procedural law are now incorporated into the chapters dealing with the topics rather than appearing in a separate chapter. Although technology is important, any student of the law must develop keen analytic skills. In this second edition we provide more opportunity for this to occur. We expanded the coverage of legal research, analysis, and writing from one chapter to two. We also added "Questions for Analysis" at the end of each chapter and continue to provide questions for analysis at the end of each case. Our treatment of legal ethics has also been expa