Legal Commentary

It seems like every semester I give serious thought (at least, I tell myself I do) to changing my courses by (among other things) changing my casebooks.  But, I almost always end up staying pat.  Let's indulge, for present purposes, the hopeful premise that this pattern does not merely reflect laziness.  Why not change?  Well, why change?  The books I use for my large courses (e.g., Dressler's Criminal Law, Volokh's First Amendment, Garvey et al's Religion and the Constitution) are, I think, very good.  I'm used to them.  I know how (I think) to get a lot, for my students' benefit, out of them. 

But . . . who am I kidding?  Changing books would (wouldn't it?) shake things up, make it likely that I'd rethink some things or see some things in a new light, provide new vehicles for teaching old questions and concepts (which might not, when taught with the new vehicle) seem so "old" after all.  And so on.

I'd love to hear from prawfs who have switched -- not so much because of a serious problem with the old book, but just in order to get the perceived, or hoped-for, benefit, of new-ness -- and also from students who might have had the chance to experience both "old book" classes (i.e., classes where the instructor is working with a text that she has been using for many years) and "new book" classes.  Any thoughts?