Courses
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LAW JD 861: Civil Litigation Program (C)
The program gives students the opportunity to use their lawyering skills in all courtroom levels. In addition to gaining important litigation experience, you will interview clients and witnesses, draft pleadings and other legal documents, negotiate with attorneys and conduct research - all under the close supervision of faculty members. Students work out of the offices of Greater Boston Legal Services in downtown Boston. Students are required to apply and be accepted to the program before they register. The Civil Litigation Program offers three different options. In the first option – Housing, Employment, Family & Disability Clinic (HEFD - section A1) (year long program) – students represent tenants in eviction defenses in housing court, claimants in unemployment compensation appeals, parties in divorces in probate court, and claimants in Social Security disability hearings before administrative law judges. In the second option – Asylum & Human Rights Clinic (AHR - section B1) (year long program) – students represent asylum seekers affirmatively in front of the U.S.C.I.S. and in removal proceedings before Immigration Court. Students also handle other immigration and humanitarian cases. In the third option – Employment Rights Clinic (ERC) (one semester program, offered fall as section C1 and spring as section C2) – students represent clients in unemployment compensation cases, wage and hour disputes, certified nurse aid appeals, discrimination/sexual harassment cases, and Family Medical Leave Act cases. PREREQUISITE/COREQUISITE (HEFD & AHR OPTIONS): If you have not already done so, you must take Evidence during the first semester to satisfy the student practice rule. If you have already taken Trial Advocacy or Professional Responsibility, you will still need to take the clinical sections. They are closely integrated with your field work. PREREQUISITE/COREQUISITE (ERC OPTION): Students must take Evidence and Professional Responsibility concurrently with the Employment Rights Clinic, or students must have already taken these courses. Students participating in the fall semester Employment Rights Clinic, who have not already taken Professional Responsibility, must take the fall Civil Litigation Program Professional Responsibility course (JD 862). NOTE: This clinic satisfies the upper-class professional skills requirement. -
LAW JD 862: Civil Litigation Program/Professional Responsibility
In Professional Responsibility you will be asked to analyze the ethical dilemmas you encounter in your field work. (This component also satisfies the School of Law’s Professional Responsibility requirement.) The culminating experience of the coursework takes place in mock trials near the end of the spring semester. This class is mandatory for students in the HEFD and AHR clinics, and is also mandatory for students in the fall ERC clinic who have not already taken Professional Responsibility. -
LAW JD 864: Government Regulation of Financial Services
This course will compare the legal and regulatory frameworks for the four major types of financial institutions in the United States: banks, broker-dealers, investment companies and insurance companies. The course will identify the essential economic activities of each type of financial institution and, in so doing, provide the context within which students can understand the fundamental purposes that underlie the legal rules that govern in each area. This study will draw comparisons and contrasts among the different regulatory approaches that apply. The course will explore the different forms of regulation that govern financial institutions, including disclosure rules, prohibitions or restrictions aimed at potential conflicts of interest, limitations on activities, capital requirements, limits on risk taking, price regulation and corporate governance requirements. Attendance at the Morin Center’s two-day program, “Financial Services Basics,” is highly recommended. The 2009 seminar is scheduled to take place August 26 and 27. Contact the Morin Center to confirm dates and to register. Admission is free but registration by 8/1/09 is required. For more information: http://www.bu.edu/law/morincenter/fsb/. -
LAW JD 865: Animal Law (S)
This seminar presents an introductory survey of the historical and current status of nonhuman animals in this rapidly developing field of law. The seminar will examine animal issues in the context of a broad span of substantive legal areas, including contracts, torts, wills and trusts and criminal law. Additionally, we will study key federal and state legislation regulating animal welfare and animal treatment. We will explore constitutional principles such as standing jurisprudence that are applicable to the emergence and development of animal rights. Through written materials and class discussion, we will consider the tools available to lawyers to effectuate social, cultural, and legal change to our perspective on how we see, speak about, and protect non-human animals. The seminar will focus on both a scholarly understanding of the subject and a pragmatic approach to practice in this area, whether as a specialty or as related to other more traditional legal fields. NOTE: This seminar does not satisfy the Upper-class Writing Requirement. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar (designated by an (S) in the title), or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, may be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who are on a wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment. -
LAW JD 867: Health Law
This class introduces the significant laws regulating the US health care sector, particularly the finance, organization and delivery of health care through our blended system of public & private insurance. Health law offers a privileged role to experts, particularly physicians, but simultaneously recognizes that health professionals and institutions are prone to decision making that generates enormous agency costs. These laws are generally responsible for the growth of health law as a recognized specialization in legal practice, while health care represents nearly one fifth of US economic activity. We also discuss health policy in the context of cost, quality and access, with some international comparisons. Some of the work in the class will be assigned in teams with class presentations. A final examination will be offered. -
LAW JD 868: Moot Court
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LAW JD 869: IMMIGRATION DETENTION CLINIC (C)
This clinical course will cover issues of detention in the immigration context, including federal detention standards and release from detention through bond and parole. The class will receive training in know your rights presentations and visit local detention facilities to provide intake and assistance to individuals in immigration custody. The class may also provide limited representation in bond proceedings before the immigration court. Prerequisite: Immigration Law and Policy. -
LAW JD 870: Patent Law
The basic questions in patent law are: why should society permit the grant of an exclusive property right in information relating to an invention? Who should be given the right? What is the scope of the right? How should the right be enforced? What disclosure duties should be placed on the patent holder? We will concentrate on these legal issues without getting mired in discussions of the technical details of particular inventions. Students without a technical background are welcome and encouraged to enroll. -
LAW JD 871: Trusts, Wills & Basic Estate Planning
Examination of the rules governing intestate and testate distribution of property including formal requirements governing execution, alteration and revocation of wills; requisite elements of express trusts and requirements for their creation; resulting trusts and constructive trusts; special rules relating to charitable trusts and spendthrift trusts; rules concerning construction of wills and trusts; and general rules governing administration of decedents' estates and trusts. -
LAW JD 872: Financial Reporting for Lawyers
Understanding financial statements and reports. The objective of the course is that students will be able to read and understand the four financial statements and the 10-k annual report. Emphasis is placed on understanding the nature and meaning of the reports, as well as the relationship to the underlying transactions. Other topics include: basic accounting principles, US GAAP versus IFRS, financial statement analysis, the relationship of the financial statement information to covenant documents, and accounting gamesmanship. RESTRICTION: Not open to students who have had more than one three-hour college course, or its equivalent, in accounting. -
LAW JD 873: Civil Procedure
Examines the structure and function of civil procedure and the requirements of due process of law. -
LAW JD 874: Advanced Legal Writing and Editing Workshop (S)
The purpose of this seminar is to provide students with the opportunity to improve their writing skills. Students will prepare a variety of practice related documents based on a single fact pattern. Some legal research will be necessary, but the emphasis will be on writing, not on research. Students will also have the opportunity to edit other students' papers, with the goal of improving their own writing skills. The class is designed primarily for those students who will not have the writing and editing opportunities provided by membership in a law school journal, but who, nonetheless, are interested in improving their writing skills. Actors will perform a scenario for the class, from which students will extract the pertinent facts. From this fact pattern, students will draft an inter office memo, a letter or memo to a non lawyer client, and a trial or appellate brief. Students will edit each other's papers and then will write a second draft of each of their documents. Students will be graded on the basis of their written work, editing work on their classmate's papers and on their classroom performance. There will be no final exam. NOTES: This seminar does not satisfy the Upperclass Writing Requirement. This seminar satisfies the upper-class professional skills requirement. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar (designated by an (S) in the title), or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, may be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who are on a wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment. -
LAW JD 876: Property
Conceptual analysis and underlying policy considerations in basic property law. -
LAW JD 879: Advanced Legal Research
In this course students will learn advanced legal research strategies to use in the practice of law, recognizing that legal information and technologies are constantly changing. Classes will review major electronic and print legal research sources, introduce new web based legal and nonlegal resources and provide advanced training in online systems. Topics include federal and state judicial, legislative and administrative law sources; legislative histories and their use in determining legislative intent; and the use of secondary sources and legal practice materials. Students will be required to complete short assignments and a substantial paper on a topic not previously researched for another course. Please check with the instructors before registering if you have any questions. NOTES: This course does not satisfy the Upper-class Writing Requirement. THIS COURSE MEETS JANUARY 11 THROUGH MARCH 29. -
LAW JD 880: European Union Law
The course begins with the legal history of European integration and with an analysis of the institutional foundations of the European Union. Classes then focus on trade within Europe. Students learn about free trade and its many constraints in the Old Continent. This part of the course includes units on Competition Law (antitrust) and intellectual property. The course emphasizes the impact of trade and legal harmonization upon culture, human rights and social policies. The study of external relations of the Union follows, with particular attention to US-EU relations. -
LAW JD 881: Alternative Dispute Resolution
One of a lawyer's primary tasks is to resolve disputes. Most controversies are never decided by a court but instead are settled by agreement. The ability to negotiate and mediate effectively is therefore crucial for litigators as well as lawyers practicing in other contexts. This course focuses on the processes of negotiation and mediation, and to a lesser degree on arbitration and dispute resolution design. It uses a mixture of discussion, short lectures, role-playing and video to give students an introduction to the theory and practice of alternative dispute resolution, including how to use these processes effectively on behalf of clients. NOTE: This course satisfies the upper-class professional skills requirement. -
LAW JD 882: Race, Nation and the Development of American Law (formerly Law & the Color Line - 20th Century (S))
Despite progress made since 1954, the color line still looms large. This course assumes that we better understand it and what to do about it by learning how we got where we are. Our subject is ethnic subordination and resistance over the past four centuries in the United States, the colonies from which it developed, and the colonies it later acquired. Readings will include (but will not be limited to) Gary Nash, Red, White and Black, Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire, Ronald Takaki, Strangers From a Different Shore, C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, Massey & Denton, American Apartheid, statutes and cases. There will be mid-term and end-term writing assignments. Class meetings will include discussion of historical documents and viewing of historical videos. NOTE: Students who took the Law & the Color Line seminar are not excluded. -
LAW JD 883: Securities Regulation
This course offers an introduction to federal securities regulation under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We will focus on the mandatory disclosure regime for public companies, exemptions from registration, the duties of participants in securities transactions, securities fraud, and core concepts such as the definition of a security and materiality. PREREQUISITE/COREQUISITE: Corporations is suggested but not required. -
LAW JD 884: Research and Writing Seminar
Small-group instruction in legal research and writing, with emphasis on developing legal research techniques, writing abilities, and legal problem-solving abilities. -
LAW JD 885: Research and Writing Seminar
Small-group instruction in legal research and writing, with emphasis on developing legal research techniques, writing abilities, and legal problem-solving abilities.
Note that this information may change at any time.
