Sam Williams (Idaho), Authorship by Omission: How Editorial Choices in Casebooks Shape the Apprehension and Meaning of Law, 58 Ind. L. Rev. 335 (2024):

The unique internal workings of the legal mind are a point of pride for the profession. But do those internal machinations reflect, and possibly reinforce, biases that ought to be examined, if not challenged? Expanding on recent work on the subject, this article makes the case that the casebook, the primary means of legal instruction, offers insights into the biases of the legal mind. Using some concepts adapted from other disciplines, the article analyzes coverage of the same case in seven textbooks to demonstrate how even the smallest changes can dramatically change the reader’s understanding of what the law is.

Conclusion
An author or editor injects their own bias into a work as soon as they make an editorial decision about that work. The existence of bias in a text or classroom is unavoidable, and not inherently negative. However, it is insufficient to acknowledge that bias exists and leave it unexplored. There is bias within the legal profession, and legal academia in particular, that can be detrimental to practice and education in an increasingly polarized and information-skeptical environment. Taking the time to explore and understand the reader’s own biases will help keep the legal community connected to the public it nominally serves and educates.

Even if the utilitarian arguments for examining bias or my interpretations of editorial decisions here are unconvincing, exploring the bias found in our work has rewards of its own. When readers engage with a casebook as a literary work with meaning informed by its author’s identity, or examine a book for bias, they engage with that book as a work of art. Art does not strictly belong to the artist, and it can be daunting to realize how vastly different what the author says is from what the author means. However, that same unknowability also means that there is always something new for authors to discover about themselves and the world. By acknowledging the smallness of their own worldview, the author gives themselves the space that they need to grow.

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