Guess how many books there are for teaching legal ethics?

I got a new legal ethics casebook from the publisher yesterday and went to put it on my shelf beside the others. There was no room. I had to move some evidence casebooks to a different shelf. And then I counted the number of books from which it is possible to teach legal ethics -- books that are published for that purpose. 

Guess how many?

Guess again.

Sixteen. At least I have 16 and that counts only hardcover books. Does any other subject have as many?

When I started teaching the subject many years ago, there were 4 or 5 and a couple were out of date.

Is this a good omen for the enterprise (I mean other than for the authors of these books)? I guess from the publishers point of view, it's not important how many copies any one book sells. It's only important how many of that publisher's books sell. This may partly explain it. But does the same dynamic operate for other required courses?

Comments

[John Steele]

Steve,

Here's an old post I did, listing quite a few PR general texts (leaving aside special texts like "ethics for tax or business lawyers). When I spoke to a publisher about my materials, they said, basically, "sure, whatever you got, we think we can publish that."

http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/your-favorite-p.html

Cochran/Collett

Coquillette

Crystal

Devine et al.

Dzienkowski/Burton

Gillers

Hayden

Hazard, et al.

Kaufman/Wilkins

Lerman/Schrag

Martyn/Fox

McGowan

Moliterno

Morgan/Rotunda

Noonan/Painter

Patterson

Pearce, Capra and Green

Pirsig/Kirwin

Rhode (Pervasive)

Rhode/Luban

Schwartz Wydick et al.

Shaffer

Simon, et al.

Sutton/Dzienkowski

Wydick, Perschbacher et al.

Zitrin/Langford /Tarr

[Stephen Gillers]

Wow! I don't even have some of these, although I suspect a few will not see a new edition. I wonder what the saturation point is. How many copies of a book must a publisher hope to sell to make publication worthwhile.

Then again, I suppose if there are multiple authors each of whom assigns the book, that will give the publisher a likely guaranteed floor.

I can understand the desire to publish a casebook in one's field (naturally). Aside from the income whatever it may be (less for a specialized subject, more for a required or popular subject; but then there is probably more competition in the latter courses), it's nice for a resume.

But overwhelmingly , in my experience, it's exciting to produce the ms. There are 'boring' parts, of course -- proofreading mostly. But you learn a lot about your subject in sifting through the materials available for inclusion -- not to mention in searching for them -- and in deciding how to organize them in the book.