Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• LAW JD 749: Disability Law (S)
  This seminar surveys the evolution of federal law as it relates to people with disabilities. We will cover disability discrimination in the areas of employment, education, government services, public accommodations run by private entities, and housing. In exploring these areas we will examine relevant case law and statutes (i.e. the ADA and its amendments, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the IDEA, and the Fair Housing Act) and their implementing regulations and guidance. In addition to studying legal authorities, we will engage in practical classroom exercises and hear from attorneys practicing in disability law-related settings. Readings will be provided. Grades will be based on class participation and a final paper. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: A limited number of students may use this class to satisfy the 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 762: Health Law Externship: Fieldwork (C)
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have received permission from the Office of Experiential Education to enroll. Students receive credit for working at a public agency, a non-profit, or a private health care organization. Placements may be paid or unpaid. Prior to the beginning of the semester, the course instructor works with students to identify suitable field placements depending on each student's individual interests and career goals. Once possible placements are identified, students are responsible for applying and being accepted to those organizations. Students receive 3-9 variable P/F credits for their fieldwork, as determined in consultation with their placement supervisors. Each credit requires 50 hours of work over the course of the 13-week semester (averaging 4 hours per week). NOTE: Students who enroll in this externship may count the credits towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. COREQUISITE: Health Law Externship: Seminar (JD 764).
• LAW JD 763: Administrative Law Research
  Many practice areas, from environmental law to immigration law, are heavily regulatory. Learn about the structure of administrative law research, from enabling statutes to agency adjudication, in this class. The class will focus on developing your understanding of the structure of administrative agencies and using the various sources of administrative law. You will learn what information is available from government sources and what specialty publishers bring to the table with an emphasis on being cost effective in the workplace. Classes will combine instruction and hands-on exercises using the major print, electronic and web based resources in administrative law. NOTE: Students may not add this course after the first class has been held. NOTE: This class counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. ENROLLMENT LIMIT: 16 students ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENT: A student who fails to attend the first class or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, will be administratively dropped from the class. Students who are on the wait list are required to attend the first meeting to be considered for enrollment. Meeting dates -- TBD.
• LAW JD 764: Health Law Externship: Seminar
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have received permission from the Office of Experiential Education to enroll. This is the companion academic component for students enrolled in the Health Law Externship: Fieldwork course. The one-hour weekly seminar examines various health law issues as well as the challenges of working in a health care environment. The seminar requires students to write a paper and make a class presentation. In addition, each student submits reflective memoranda chronicling their educational experience and reactions to the practice of law observed at the field placements. NOTE: Students who enroll in this externship may count the credits toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. COREQUISITE: Health Law Externship Program: Fieldwork (JD 762). GRADING NOTICE: This class does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 765: Critical Civil Procedure
  Many of our most famous--and infamous--cases are procedural. Because procedural rules allow, or restrict, access to justice, procedure is a central pressure point in the struggle to eradicate structural inequality and oppression through the courts. This seminar will focus on the ways in which aspects of civil procedure decrease or perpetuate structural inequality for marginalized communities, especially regarding issues such as race, sex, gender, disability, nationality/immigration status, sexual orientation, and religion. We will read short, provocative essays to analyze which communities do, and do not, get a fair opportunity to have their claim or defense heard in court. From a critical perspective, we will engage in a discourse about the procedural, structural limitations on social justice. Another goal of this seminar is to explore a more complex view of our professional roles as attorneys. GRADING NOTICE: This class will not offer the CR/NC/H option. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may not be used to satisfy the 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 766: Environmental Law Practicum (C)
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Environmental Law Practicum. Students receive credit for completing environmental law-related legal projects for a regional or national environmental law organization, such as the Conservation Law Foundation and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Projects will vary in scope and content based on student interest and the needs of the partnering organization. Project topics include clean energy, clean water, and environmental justice, which concerns the intersection of civil rights, fundamental fairness, and environmental policy. Students may also have the opportunity to work on litigation-related matters. Throughout the semester, students will work both under the supervision of an attorney at the partner organization and under the supervision of Professor Pam Hill. Practicum students must attend at least six class meetings with Professor Hill. Students receive either 1, 2 or 3 graded credits depending on the nature of the project and the anticipated workload. NOTE: This clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 767: Climate Risk & Financial Institutions: Submerging Markets (S)
  This seminar will explore how the law shapes the assessment of, and response to, the financial risks of climate change. We'll look, for example, at how misaligned incentives for risk-taking (such as between a developer and a house buyer, or between a corporation and its insurer) lead to overdevelopment in flood plains and areas with high wildfire risk. After an introduction to the economics of climate change, we'll turn to questions like: What role do securities regulators, insurance commissioners, and central bankers play in the transition to a greener economy? What does "ESG" investing mean and does it do anything? Are markets foreseeing both physical risks and transition risks (i.e., stranded assets)? Our approach will consider the political economy of risk bearing, and investigate dynamics like the influence of credit ratings agencies on local government investment in sea-level rise adaptation. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: A limited number of students may use this class to satisfy the 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 768: Criminal Motion Practice and Advocacy
  Advocacy courses in law school tend to focus on the traditional Trial Advocacy model (opening statements, direct and cross examinations, and closing arguments) or post-trial Appellate Advocacy. The vast majority of cases, however, never reach trial. Criminal Motion Practice and Advocacy will look comprehensively at the pre-trial motions that comprise the bulk of criminal litigation. Students will have the opportunity to research, write, and argue their own pretrial motions against opposing counsel. The course will travel chronologically through the life of a criminal case, beginning at arraignment and focusing on the art of motions practice. In class exercises will include arguments for Motions to Suppress searches and seizures based on search warrants, as well as Motion to Suppress hearings with live witness testimony and examination. NOTES: This class counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. ENROLLMENT LIMIT: 12 students. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. PREREQUISITE: Criminal Procedure. ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENT: A student who fails to attend the first class or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, will be administratively dropped from the class. Students who are on the wait list for a section are required to attend the first meeting to be considered for enrollment.
• LAW JD 770: Creative & Innovative Economies (S)
  This IP seminar studies the complicated relationship of access and ownership in the development and sustainability of IP-rich communities in the internet age. Students read intensely for the first half of the semester about particular creative and innovative communities and their IP practices, e.g., video game developers, graffiti artists, biomedical engineers, podcasters, photographers, chefs, jewelry designers, app developers (the list is endless!). In this first part of the course, students write short response papers and discuss the material. They will also begin formulating a plan for the second half of the semester, in which they will choose their own a creative or innovative community to study in depth. The second half of the semester supports the student in that research project, identifying the community, gaining access to evidence about that community, analyzing the evidence, and developing legal analysis of intellectual property issues for that community. We workshop the individual projects as a group, read proposals together, and continue with our reading on intellectual property issues that relate to the chosen projects. The final project is a combination of (1) facts/evidence about the community, (2) a written analysis of the facts, (3) legal proposals to aid the achievement of its goals as a creative or innovative community, and (4) a short presentation to the class of the findings/analysis. COREQUISITE/PREREQUISITE: Intellectual Property, Copyright, Trademark, or Patent Law. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: A limited number of students may use this class to satisfy the 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 771: Learning From Practice Externship: Seminar
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have received permission from the Clinical and Experiential Programs Office to enroll. This is the companion academic component for students enrolled in the Learning from Practice: Fieldwork course. This one-hour weekly seminar focuses on the ways in which lawyers develop skills on the job, and identifies best practice for professional development, mentoring, networking, communication, and interacting with clients and the media. The course also examines issues involving diversity, work-life balance, and ethical considerations. The seminar requires students to make a class presentation and keep a reflective journal chronicling their educational experience and reactions to the practice of law observed at the field placement. NOTE: Students who enroll in this externship may count the credits toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. COREQUISITE: Learning from Practice Externship (JD 809). GRADING NOTICE: This class does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 773: Transaction Simulation: Auction and Sale of a Private Company
  Practice Area: Mergers & Acquisitions This course is one of the semester-long transaction simulations offered as part of the Transactional Law Program. The simulated transaction is the acquisition in a merger transaction of a privately-held company in the single-cup coffee brewing industry (the "Company") through an auction process. The course will cover the key stages and lawyering tasks in the transaction, including reviewing and commenting on a financial advisor engagement letter, reviewing and revising confidentiality agreements with potential bidders, reviewing a first-round bid procedures letter and evaluating initial indications of interest from bidders, and conducting due diligence. As the auction process proceeds, the class will be divided into teams representing a potential purchaser or the Company for various additional steps in the transaction, including negotiating and revising the Company's "auction draft" merger agreement, preparing disclosure schedules, drafting materials relating to obtaining board approval, and preparing closing documents in connection with the closing of the transaction. Students will perform the key analytical, drafting and other legal tasks required to effectively represent their respective clients during these stages of the transaction. The course also addresses certain ethical issues that may arise in transactions of this kind and in transactional practice generally. The course grade will be based on individual class participation, drafting assignments and contributions to team efforts. CLASS SIZE: Limited to 12 students. PREREQUISITE OR COREQUISITE: Contract Drafting. NOTES: This course counts toward the 6-credit Experiential Learning requirement and also satisfies the Transaction Simulation requirement of the Transactional Practice Concentration. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENT: A student who fails to attend the first class or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar will be administratively dropped from the course. Students who are on the wait list are required to attend the first class to be considered for enrollment. Because the course involves regular in-class exercises, some of which are done in teams, and class participation is a significant component of a student's final grade, regular class attendance is essential and thus the course cannot accommodate flexibility in attendance.
• LAW JD 775: Reproductive Rights
  In the United States, and around the world, many people still suffer from basic lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services. This course explores the role of law in understanding the distribution of access to SRH services and care. We will draw on various theoretical and doctrinal tools including critical legal theory, critical race theory, sociology of science, human rights, feminist theory, and a range of public health methods to understand the current state of the law and the possibilities and limitations of legal reforms. The course will foreground issues of race and reproduction as well as the politics of public health law (including the role of scientific evidence and medical expertise in courts). We will examine various sites of lawmaking including courts and legislatures and we will pay attention to the legal reforms offered by social movements both for and against greater access to services and care.
• LAW JD 776: Intellectual Property Workshop (S)
  This seminar examines topics from the frontiers of intellectual property law. The class provides students with the opportunity to meet and interact with cutting-edge IP scholars who will be invited to speak. Students will read the speakers' works in progress, critique those writings in papers and oral give-and-take discussions with the authors, and will be provided additional reading as appropriate. The goals of this workshop are three: for students to deepen their substantive knowledge of IP law, for students to increase their abilities to participate in scholarly debate, and for established scholars to improve their working papers through the input of the workshop group. COREQUISITE/PREREQUISITE: Ideally, students should have taken or be concurrently enrolled in a course in IP, Copyright, Patent, or Trademark. Students who have not taken such a course (or who are not enrolled currently in such a course) must obtain the permission of the instructor. Students in the seminar will write several short papers commenting on the papers presented in the workshop. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: Class of 2024 -- This class may be used to partially satisfy the 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 777: Education Law
  In this course, we will examine the relationship between law, public policy, and current issues in education at both the K-12 and higher ed levels. Major themes will include campus safety and privacy; the right to an equal and quality education (with a focus on desegregation and resegregation); constitutional issues in public schools (including religious considerations and student freedom of expression); and structures of educational governance and various school reforms. Related topics of engagement will likely include policing in schools, ongoing legal battles over race-conscious practices and policies, the unmet needs of English language learners, and the impact of the charter school movement. Course assessment will include a three-hour final examination. Class participation will also factor into final grades. GRADING NOTICE: This class does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 778: Introduction to Risk Management and Compliance
  Spanning the range of industries from health care to financial services to manufacturing and beyond, compliance is the fast-growing practice of managing the full range of legal risk within highly-regulated organizations. At the complex intersection of law, business operations, reputation, and ethics, compliance lawyers practice "preventive law" to protect companies against corporate criminal and civil liability. We will discuss how to identify and evaluate an organization's legal risks and and work in multidisciplinary teams to develop effective strategies to prevent wrongdoing (and detect violations when they do occur). Among other topics, we will look at the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and enforcement guidance from the Department of Justice and Securities & Exchange Commission to see how compliance has become a key mechanism of corporate accountability in the U.S. and globally.
• LAW JD 779: Digital Civil Liberties (S)
  This readings seminar will focus on emerging issues of civil liberties in our digital society, with special attention paid to privacy and freedom of speech in the age of social media, platforms, and artificial intelligence. We will explore the potential and dangers of the Internet revolution in communications, and how it is affected by the activities of users, by companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and by government attempts to restrain or shape the evolution of online activity through law. The course will be structured around discussions of principal readings of relatively recent (and readable) books and articles, including the possibility of videoconferencing or in-person lectures with some of the authors to discuss their work. There will be three student papers required -- two short papers due during the semester providing a critical review of one of the readings chosen by the student, and a slightly longer paper due at the end of exams comparing and critiquing two of the principal readings. In addition to gaining a deeper understanding of the topics of the books, we will work on developing essential skills for lawyers of close reading and clear and persuasive writing. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: Class of 2024 -- This class may be used to partially satisfy the 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 780: Trademark and Unfair Competition
  This course will examine the precepts of trademark and unfair competition law. We will investigate issues of ownership, protectability, and infringement in the context of words, symbols, slogans, product design and trade dress. The course also will handle related issues, depending on class interest, such as: trademark's common law roots, false and comparative advertising, parody, the right of publicity, the First Amendment, a comparison of how copyright and trademark treat 'functional' designs, the influence of misappropriation law and fears of free riding, and the challenge of applying trademark laws in the Internet context. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 783: Transaction Simulation: Int'l Business Collaboration
  Practice Areas: Cross-Border Transactions and International Negotiations This course is one of the semester-long transaction simulations offered as part of the Transactional Law Program. The simulated transaction involves two companies, one a large U.S.-based pharmaceutical company ("KJH"), and the other an African agricultural production company that is majority owned by the government of the African country of Malundi ("MCC"). The two companies are interested in working together to exploit a new technology developed by KJH that uses cassava, a plant, grown and harvested by MCC, for a new arthritis drug. MCC has ample supply of cassava. KJH has a worldwide distribution channel, has developed and patented a manufacturing process, and possesses valuable know-how, used to extract the active ingredient for the new drug from cassava. Their collaboration could take the form of a joint venture, licensing agreement, long-term supply contract, or a combination of these structures. The course will begin with an introduction to important concepts about international business legal structures, negotiations, and the facts of the simulated case. The class will engage in a number of "hands-on" skill building exercises, individually and in small groups. As the course proceeds, the class will be divided for the duration of the semester into two teams of attorneys, one team representing MCC, and the other representing KJH. The teams will structure, negotiate and document in a detailed "letter of intent" the terms of a contract for the parties' collaboration The course will explore the impact of cross-cultural customs and norms, as well as challenges presented by individual personalities and negotiating styles and client demands. The course also addresses certain ethical issues that may arise in transactions of this kind and in transactional practice generally. The course grade will be based on individual class participation, individual and team drafting assignments and team negotiations. CLASS SIZE: Limited to 12 students. This course is open to LLM students provided there are available seats and with the permission of the Instructor and the Assistant Dean of Graduate and International Programs. PREREQUISITES: Corporations and Contract Drafting (or Transactional Contracts in the case of LLM students) are recommended, but not required. NOTES: This course counts toward the 6-credit Experiential Learning requirement and also satisfies the Transaction Simulation requirement of the Transactional Practice Concentration. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENT: A student who fails to attend the first class or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar will be administratively dropped from the course. Students who are on the wait list are required to attend the first class to be considered for enrollment. Because the course involves regular in-class exercises, some of which are done in teams, and class participation is a significant component of a student's final grade, regular class attendance is essential and thus the course cannot accommodate flexibility in attendance.
• LAW JD 784: Transaction Simulation: The Rise and Fall of a Syndicated Loan
  Practice Areas: General Business, Banking/Finance, Corporate Governance and Restructuring This course is one of the semester-long transaction simulations offered as part of the Transactional Law Program. The simulated transaction is the structuring, negotiation and documentation, and subsequent restructuring of a $1.7 billion secured, syndicated commercial loan to a large, privately held medical testing company (the "Company"). The Company's primary purpose for seeking this loan is to use the proceeds to pay an extraordinary dividend to its founder and controlling shareholder and to several private equity firms which own stock in the Company (often referred to as a "dividend recap loan"). The course will explore some of the key issues, and students will perform several of the principal tasks, which transactional lawyers specializing in general business, banking/finance, corporate governance and/or restructuring must consider and carry out in advising corporate clients and financial institutions in a transaction of this kind. These tasks will include advising the Company's board of directors and officers or prospective lenders in evaluating whether to engage in the dividend recap loan transaction, the steps needed to obtain corporate approval of such transaction given that certain board members who are also shareholders will benefit from it, and structuring, negotiating and documenting these types of transactions. The course will also examine the critical role certain provisions of the credit and security agreements for the loan play following the loan closing when serious problems and potential events of default arise leading to a restructuring of the original loan. Finally, the course will consider various ways a troubled loan can be restructured either through an out-of-court consensual transaction or a Chapter 11 restructuring. The course grade will be based on class participation and graded drafting assignments. CLASS SIZE: Limited to 12 students. PREREQUISITE OR CO-REQUISITE: Corporations. Contract Drafting is recommended, but not required. NOTES: This course counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement and also satisfies the Transaction Simulation requirement of the Transactional Practice Concentration. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS: A student who fails to attend the first class or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar will be administratively dropped from the course. Students who are on the wait list are required to attend the first class to be considered for enrollment. Because the course involves regular in-class exercises, some of which are done in teams, and class participation is a significant component of a student's final grade, regular class attendance is essential and thus the course cannot accommodate flexibility in attendance.
• LAW JD 786: Legislative Policy & Drafting: Clinic Option (C)
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Legislative Policy & Drafting Clinic. Students learn about the law-making process through coursework and hands-on experience working with a client seeking to advance a bill or project through the state legislature. Students work on several projects during the semester that highlight different aspects of the legislative process, allowing students to relate and test the theories discussed in class to real life situations. The in-class seminar covers subjects that affect the legislative process including: constitutional interpretation by legislatures, theories of representation, legislative organization and rules, lobbying, legislative oversight powers, and legislature-executive agency relationships. The clinic instructor works with students to select projects in the students' specific areas of interest, if any. In particular, students interested in business and tax, environment law, or health law, may specialize in those areas for the full semester. NOTE: This clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.

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