with Michelle Lapointe, Short Notes on Teaching About the Micro-Politics of Class, with Examples from Torts and Employment Law Casebooks

Carle examines how legal education can better address class dimensions embedded in substantive law by analyzing torts and employment law casebooks. The article argues that traditional legal pedagogy often obscures how law reflects and reinforces class hierarchies, power imbalances, and economic inequality. Carle demonstrates through specific examples from torts doctrine how cases and rules protect wealthy interests while disadvantaging poor individuals, yet casebook materials rarely highlight these distributional consequences. The author analyzes employment law similarly, showing how legal principles around at-will employment, independent contractor status, and wage regulation embody class-based policy choices that advantage capital over labor. Carle proposes that law professors should explicitly address how doctrine reflects and perpetuates class subordination, engaging students in critical examination of whether legal rules serve justice or entrench inequality. The article argues that understanding law's relationship to economic hierarchy is essential to developing lawyers committed to meaningful change. Carle advocates for casebook redesign and pedagogical approaches that illuminate how law shapes class relationships and economic opportunity.

Keywords: legal pedagogy · class hierarchy · employment law · torts · economic inequality · casebook design