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Statutes have increasingly replaced common law court decisions as the principal expression of public policy and the dominant source of law in the United States. Reflecting this development, many upper-class courses -- and even some first year courses -- are heavily oriented toward statutory law. The emphasis in most courses, however, is necessarily on the law and policy of a particular substantive area, not on legislation as such. This course lays the groundwork for the study and practice of statutory law in all substantive areas by exploring some of the major theories, techniques and issues of modern legislation. The course is designed to be both theoretical and practical. The course will begin with an overview of the process of enacting legislation. It will then examine the major theories of the legislative process in a democracy and the implications of those theories for the treatment of statutes. The course will next explore the relation between statutes and other sources of law, including judicial and executive decisions. Finally, the course will examine statutory interpretation, looking both at currently controversial theories of interpretation and at the tools of interpretation used by courts, such as language and grammar, legislative history, and policy-based maxims. Evaluation: Final examination. Teaching method: Lecture and discussion