Book excerpt: Featuring all-new coverage and a convenient new two-volume looseleaf format, here's today's authoritative, up-to-date guide through the labyrinth of defamation law. Now expanded to over 1,400 pages of definitive legal, tactical, and strategic insight into libel, slander, and related causes of action, this new Third Edition reaffirms this treatise's position as 'the standard text in the field against which all others must be judged'. Citing thousands of cases, the work takes you securely through this complex field, from its common law and constitutional foundations . . . to the more recent influential case law . . . to the crucial and often confusing splits of judicial authority. Designed for judges, teachers, journalists, and lawyers on both sides of the table, the book helps practitioners and their clients to: Ensure written and oral communications are less likely to result in suit; Avoid or limit lawsuits by issuing retractions and taking other mitigating steps; Persuade judges to dismiss complaints or grant summary judgements.