Courses

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

• LAW JD 879: Advanced Legal Research
  In this class students will be exposed to how legal research functions in practice. The research projects will be designed to highlight major legal research tools in both online and print formats. The projects will feature tasks such locating court documents, doing a legislative history, finding agency regulations and guidance, doing state specific research with practice series, researching an unfamiliar area of the law using secondary sources, as well as learning to use Lexis/Nexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Law in a cost effective manner. Most classes will have an assignment and some will be longer projects such as a client letter, a research memo for a supervisor and all will include a research log. There will be an exam where the students must do several short research assignments with a research log. The objective of the class is for students to become comfortable completing simple and complex research in a work setting. NOTE: This class counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. 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.
• LAW JD 881: Alternative Dispute Resolution
  The goal of this course is to improve students' ability to resolve disputes and to productively engage in conflict. In this highly interactive class, students will examine a variety of dispute resolution processes, other than traditional court adjudication, including negotiation, mediation, arbitration, dispute system design and restorative justice. Over the course of the semester, students will engage in a series of exercises (i.e., role-plays) through which they can develop and hone their skills and approaches to dispute resolution. Discussion and short lectures will accompany the exercises, as appropriate. There will be short written assignments as well as a longer paper due at the end of the semester. No final exam. NOTE: This course counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This class will not offer the CR/NC/H option. RESTRICTION: Students may not enroll in both Alternative Dispute Resolution and Negotiation (JD921).
• LAW JD 882: Immigrants' Rights/Human Traffic Core Skills
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Program. The seminar is the fall companion course for students enrolled in the Program. It provides a practice-oriented introduction to advocacy on behalf of indigent clients, including noncitizens and survivors of human trafficking. Students will develop a wide range of competencies with classes focusing topics including: (1) client interviewing and counseling; (2) case planning; (3) legal research and writing; (4) cultural competency; (5) legal story-telling and developing a theory of the case; (6) affidavit writing; (7) vicarious and secondary trauma; and (8) professional responsibility. Students will participate in class simulations, present in case rounds, and actively engage in facilitated discussions. There also will be two boot camp classes for students with specialized training in the following areas: (1) immigration law with a focus on asylum law and representing vulnerable noncitizens; and (2) human trafficking law with a focus on the protection framework in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and multi-disciplinary lawyering. NOTE: The Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Program counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• 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 examine how the securities laws shape the process by which companies raise capital through IPOs, public offerings, and private placements. We will also focus on the mandatory disclosure regime for publicly traded companies and the related topics of securities fraud, insider trading, market manipulation, and shareholder voting. We will study core concepts such as the definition of a security and materiality. Finally, we will spend significant time examining the role of the SEC and private shareholder litigation in policing the securities laws. GRADING NOTICE: This class will not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 884: Law and Capitalism
  This seminar will examine the relationship between law and capitalism. How do legal institutions, legal concepts and rules establish the essential social relations for capitalism? How does capitalism shape black letter law and the structure of our legal institutions? We will tackle these questions theoretically and through a series of doctrinal case studies. That is, first we will delve into theories of capitalism to better understand how a range of scholars have described the relationship between state regulation and the capitalist mode of production. Second, we will also study capitalism in more concrete terms in the late 20th and early 21st century, through the rise of neoliberalism. Specifically, we will situate particular areas of law, like tax law, criminal law, environmental law, family law, money regulation, corporate law, constitutional law, sovereign lending – in scholarly debates and historical context to better understand how these enable, constrain and shape capitalist social relations. Throughout this course, we will examine the reproduction of group hierarchies, asymmetries, and antagonisms, and as expressed through class, race, gender, disability, and empire. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may be used to satisfy the requirement. **A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar, or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, will be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.
• LAW JD 886: Law and Sports
  This seminar surveys legal issues affecting the business of sports in America. Although there are no pre-requisites, students should be prepared to understand basic substantive principles of antitrust, labor, intellectual property, agency, tort and contract law and how they have influenced the: (i) evolution of professional sports franchises and leagues; (ii) relationship between players and owners; and (iii) value of the product they produce and exhibit across various distribution platforms. Particular emphasis will be placed on how to translate substantive law into the practical advice sports clients require on a regular basis, including issues involving the interaction among leagues, franchises and athletes, and distinctions between assets owned and controlled by athletes, as opposed to those owned and exploited by leagues and owners. Assets controlled by game rightsholders, sponsors, venues and other licensees and vendors also will be analyzed, as will the ways unauthorized third parties try to capitalize on them. Grades will be based on oral class participation, written case and contract interpretation exercises and written advocacy. There is no examination. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may not be used to satisfy the requirement. OFFERING PATTERN: This class may not be offered every year. Students are advised to take this into account when planning their long-term schedule. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar, or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, will be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.
• LAW JD 888: Immigrants' Rights/Human Traffic Clinic
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Program. In this seminar, students will further develop their trial advocacy skills by participating in multiple mock hearings and portions of simulated trials. In particular, this course will focus on developing students' competencies in the following topics: (1) witness preparation, including working with lay and expert witnesses; (2) oral advocacy, including direct/cross examination and opening and closing statements; (3) factual and legal research; (4) cross-cultural lawyering and implicit bias; (5) legal advocacy and brief writing; (6) basic negotiation; and (7) developing professional roles and identities. Students will also be introduced to the intersections between criminal and immigration law, and to law and organizing in the immigration context. NOTE: The Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Program counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 889: Introduction to Federal Income Taxation
  The income tax is a pervasive feature of life in the United States and lawyers encounter tax issues in virtually every field of practice. This course introduces students to the fundamental principles of the federal income tax, and its impact on a wide range of matters, including employment, tort claims, divorce, retirement, and especially business activities and investments of all types Topics include: the concept of income, determination of gross income, allowance of deductions and the determination of taxable income, identification of the taxpayer, taxable periods and timing, the determination of gain or loss (including realization and recognition) from dealings in property, the concept of income tax basis, and the process of change in the tax law.
• LAW JD 890: EU Law
  This introductory course is designed to enable students to learn EU Law fundamentals, research current EU Law developments, and present their findings professionally. Reading assignments and in-class work will cover: Historical and economic foundations of the Treaty of Rome (EEC 1957); institutional and constitutional structure of the EU; legal infrastructure of the EU internal market; EU external relations; human rights protection in the EU legal system; legal management of the EU 'crises' of the 21st century; and EU law perspectives on geopolitical turmoil. An in-class examination shortly after spring break will assess students' knowledge of assigned readings (50% of the final grade). Students will present their own research to the class during the last part of the semester (50% of the final grade). ENROLLMENT RESTRICTION: Students who previously enrolled in the 3-credit seminar (JD880) may not take this course.
• LAW JD 891: ANTITRUST & HEALTH CARE
  The healthcare industry has been a leading target of antitrust enforcement over the past two decades, and most of that has focused on the conduct of pharmaceutical companies. The high cost of prescription drugs is one of the biggest public policy challenges of our time and is now an issue squarely in the cross hairs of federal and state antitrust enforcers. The cases that result feature the application of traditional antitrust principles, formed over the last century, to a unique industry with atypical economics, complex regulatory schemes, and extensive enforcement of patent rights. At every turn, courts and regulators must balance the need to promote price-reducing competition with the need to maintain incentives for massive private R&D investment. This seminar will serve as an introduction to those cases. It will focus on the most common antitrust matters that arise from the competition between branded and generic drugs. It will also survey other hot topics at the antitrust-healthcare intersection more broadly, such as hospital and health system mergers. The course will also serve to develop practical lawyering skills--including how to critically analyze precedent, how to frame and to communicate advice to clients when legal standards are uncertain, and how lawyers shape the law. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: A limited number of students may use this class to satisfy the requirement either partially or in full. **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 892: Torts
  Principles of civil recovery for injury, including strict liability, negligence, and the intentional torts, with emphasis on the social, economic, and moral underpinnings of the doctrines.
• LAW JD 893: Health Justice Practicum
  The Health Justice Practicum is a new one-semester, two-credit course enrolling a maximum of six students. Students will collaborate with frontline health care providers who serve marginalized populations on projects that require legal and problem-solving skills and where providers and/or patients have identified a systemic problem affecting patients' health and wellbeing. In Spring 2022, we will be collaborating with Project RESPECT, an integrated obstetrics, addiction medicine, and behavioral health clinic at Boston Medical Center that serves low-income pregnant and parenting people in recovery from substance use disorders (SUDs), especially opioid use disorders (OUDs). Project RESPECT providers have identified a problem in Massachusetts law that significantly harms low-income parents in recovery from SUDs and their children, disproportionately harming Black, Indigenous, or other people of color (BIPOC) families. Children born to women in evidence-based medication-assisted recovery (e.g., methadone treatment) must be reported at birth to the Department of Children and Families as if the mother were actively using drugs. Children born to BIPOC mothers are more likely than children born to white mothers both to be reported to child protection authorities and to be separated from their families as a result. The trauma of custody disruption has demonstrated serious effects on both recovering parents and child health and development. We will explore and advocate for possible legal and policy advocacy solutions to these issues--for example, changes in mandatory reporting laws and reformed child protection agency practices to eliminate discriminatory decisionmaking. Students will attend group meetings as well as work on research and advocacy. The project work will allow students to hone their research, analytical, writing, presentation, and problem-solving skills. Regular group meetings will deepen students' understanding of their projects by providing a broader context. Students will also meet individually or in teams with the faculty supervisor to discuss their project work. GRADING NOTICE: This class will not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 894: Trial Advocacy
  This course introduces the student to the structure of the trial process and the skills used by trial lawyers. The topics covered range from opening statements to closing arguments, including conducting direct and cross-examination of witnesses, making and meeting objections, introducing documents and discovery into evidence, and using hypothetical questions with expert witnesses. Students must perform simulated exercises and will try one or more civil or criminal cases before a jury. Visit the web for more information on the instructors. PREREQUISITE: EVIDENCE. Students taking TRIAL ADVOCACY in the second semester of their third year may take EVIDENCE as a COREQUISITE. Students who have taken a trial advocacy course as part of a clinic may not subsequently enroll in Trial Advocacy. ENROLLMENT LIMIT: 12 students. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. NOTE: This course counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. 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.
• LAW JD 895: Youth and the Law
  We will consider the way the law responds to the transition from childhood to adulthood. We will consider the ways numeric age and conceptions of maturity influence responses to a range of legal issues. Topics may include: the rights of youth to familial or state support in obtaining housing and other material goods; the relationship between youth and commercial actors or other third parties ranging from the infancy doctrine to social media platforms; parental authority and responsibilities in healthcare and educational decision-making; the treatment of youth in the criminal legal system; the civic spheres of military service, voting, and jury duty; child labor laws; the consequences of the age of majority; and ages of privilege such as driving and access to alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis. We will read together for the first portion of the course. To assess reading, students may be asked to make quick presentations about the day's readings individually or on teams, to submit weekly reading responses, and/or to answer quick written questions about the reading at the start of class. As we unpack frameworks underneath youth law, we will consider research projects in light of the frameworks we develop. In the final portion of the course, students will offer oral presentations of their chosen youth-related topic, and submit a ten page paper after their presentation. The presentation and the paper account for half of the grade, while participation, including attendance, discussion, and preparation/reading assessment, account for the other half. For the first two-thirds of the semester, this is a reading intensive course. A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar 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. UPPERCLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may be used to partially satisfy the requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This seminar does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 896: Corporate Counsel Externship: Seminar
  This CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have received permission from the Clinical and Experiential Programs Office to enroll. This is a 2-credit graded seminar for those students doing fieldwork in Corporate Counsel offices that meets every week for 1.5 hours. The seminar will cover a range of topics and competencies essential to the day-to-day role of a lawyer in the corporate counsel offices of for-profit and nonprofit companies, such as: understanding the modern and future role of corporate counsel offices, on a global scale; exercising executive leadership; representing a business entity through its constituents; becoming both a trusted legal advisor and strategic business partner to the corporate client; upholding confidentiality and ethical standards; learning the client's business; understanding the role of regulatory compliance; communicating effectively in a business setting; managing priorities and crises; collaborating with multi-disciplined teams; and solving problems with workable solutions that enable the client's objectives. To maximize the students' growth over the semester, the seminar will also teach students how lawyers learn from practice, build strong supervisory and mentorship relationships, build cultural competence, reflect and self-assess, and set and measure progress on professional development goals. Students will write reflective papers, make oral presentations, and complete other work as required by the instructor. COREQUISITE: Corporate Counsel Externship Fieldwork (JD 954). NOTE: Students who enroll in this externship may count the credits towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement.
• LAW JD 897: Consumer Economic Justice Clinic Seminar 1
  THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Civil Litigation and Justice Program - Consumer Economic Justice Clinic. In addition to the clinic fieldwork, students will attend a weekly classroom seminar. The fall seminar will cover substantive consumer law as well as theories and policies that explain the current state of consumer protection and economic injustice. Students will learn about key state and federal consumer protection laws including the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, The Truth in Lending Act, M.G.L. Chapter 93A (also called the "Massachusetts Consumer Protection Law") and how these laws may be used to move low-income consumers towards economic justice. PRE/CO-REQUISITES: Evidence and Professional Responsibility. NOTE: This course counts towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.
• LAW JD 900: Economics of Intellectual Property Law
  This seminar will explore the economics of intellectual property law. There are no prerequisites. The readings for the seminar will consist of Cass and Hylton, Laws of Creation (2013), and several cases and articles. The seminar will emphasize understanding the policy justifications for the major doctrines in intellectual property. The topics studies will include patent law, copyright law, trademark law, trade secret law, and the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property. ENROLLMENT LIMIT: 14 students. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may be used to satisfy the requirement.
• LAW JD 901: APPELLATE ADVOCACY PROGRAM DIRECTOR
  This class is restricted to third-year students who applied and were accepted as directors of the BU Law Moot Court programs (Stone and Albers). NOTE: This class may be used to satisfy the Upper-class Writing requirement.
• LAW JD 903: SUPREME COURT DECISIONMAKING
  This course will focus on cases that are currently on the docket of the Supreme Court across the range of the Court's subject matter. In the first week of class, we will read a set of pending certiorari petitions and vote as a class on whether we would grant the petition. (Petitions and background readings will be available on the course website.) Each student will be responsible for writing a brief memorandum in one case on whether the Court should grant the petition. Thereafter, each week, the class will read materials in preparation to discuss one or two cases pending on the merits, including its lower court opinion, the briefs from each party and selected amicus briefs. Prior to each class session, each student will be responsible for writing a brief memo (no more than a paragraph or two on each case) briefly stating how they would decide the case or cases for that week and why. Students will also be responsible for drafting one 20-25 page Supreme Court opinion and one 3-5 page dissenting opinion (either from their own opinion or someone else's) to be distributed to and discussed by the class. NOTE: Students registered for this seminar are encouraged to choose a case from the Court's docket during Fall Semester and take the lead on writing the opinion in that case. Students who do not choose a case in advance will be assigned one at the first class meeting. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may be used to satisfy the requirement; two drafts and research on secondary sources is required. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar, or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, will be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.
• LAW JD 905: Entertainment Law
  This seminar will focus on the varied legal and business doctrines that influence the practice of entertainment law. Some of the primary topics include copyright and trademark protection and enforcement; defamation and freedom of speech; privacy and publicity rights; social media; licensing and merchandising entertainment properties; and other general contractual relations within the entertainment industry. The course will also examine the practical aspects of entertainment law, such as client counseling and negotiations and contract drafting. There will be no final exam. Grades will be based upon papers and class participation. NOTES: This class may not be used to 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.