Antiracist Lawyering Courses

THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Access to Justice Clinic. This seminar examines the larger societal context of students' fieldwork representing poverty-law clients in family, housing, employment, and disability cases. Students will actively analyze and address the intersections of the legal system with the multiple systemic barriers their clients face (e.g., gender, race, class, disability). Students will learn the skills and legal knowledge relevant to representation of clinic clients (including client interviewing, client counseling, oral and written advocacy, and negotiation). 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.

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The seminar will evaluate the current affordable housing crisis and the ways in which it has been influenced by significant events, including population growth pressures, the Great Migration, the 1918 Flu Pandemic, the spread of zoning in the 1920s, race-based restrictive housing covenants, red-lining, rent control and other topics. The course will examine the impact of racism, casteism and economic discrimination on housing law and the permitting, financing and taxation of housing by reviewing the relevant decisional law, local, state and federal regulations and statutes and housing policy reports and articles. The affordable housing crisis will be examined from the perspectives of the individuals who need affordable housing, the individuals who oppose affordable housing being built near them, the developers who design and build housing, the local officials who perform the permitting and the state and federal officials who create and enforce the regulatory, statutory and tax schemes that mold how affordable housing is created. A 15-20 page term paper will be required that examines one or more aspects of affordable housing law, with a variety of potential topics to be offered at the outset of the course. 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.

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SPRG 2027: LAW JD 935 A1, Jan 11th to Apr 21st 2027

THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to one of the four clinics in the Civil Litigation and Justice Program. These clinics are: the Access to Justice Clinic (A2J), the Appellate Clinic, the Civil Litigation Clinic (CLC), and the Consumer Economic Justice Clinic (CEJC). Students in the Civil Litigation and Justice Program handle their own caseloads and/or systems change projects under the supervision of clinical faculty. Students participate in the Program for the full year through one of the four clinic options. NOTE: The Civil Litigation and Justice Program counts towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.

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FALL 2026: LAW JD 861 A1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
FALL 2026: LAW JD 861 D1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
SPRG 2027: LAW JD 861 A1, Jan 11th to Apr 21st 2027
SPRG 2027: LAW JD 861 D1, Jan 11th to Apr 21st 2027

THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Access to Justice Clinic of the Civil Litigation and Justice Program. This seminar continues the coursework of the fall semester in examining the larger societal context of students' fieldwork representing poverty-law clients in family, housing, employment, and disability cases. Students will actively analyze and address the intersections of the legal system with the multiple systemic barriers their clients face (e.g., gender, race, class, disability). In addition to the skills and legal knowledge relevant to representation of clinic clients, seminar discussions and projects will focus on proposed solutions to the systemic challenges faced by those clients, and situate them within current theories of law as a tool for social justice. NOTE: This course counts towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.

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In the mid-1980s, a scholarly movement to become known as "Critical Race Theory" (CRT) developed in legal academia. Early critical race theorists--including Derrick Bell, Mari Matsuda, Charles Lawrence, Richard Delgado, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Patricia Williams--challenged the substance and style of conventional legal scholarship. Substantively, race crits rejected formal equality, individual rights, and colorblind approaches to solving legal problems. Stylistically, critical race scholars often employed new methodologies for legal scholarship, including storytelling and narrative. The Critical Race Theory Colloquium is designed to expose students to core CRT principles and interrogate CRT's possibilities and limitations. This endeavor will require students to think critically about race and racism in conjunction with other intersecting structures of oppression and hierarchy. The Critical Race Theory Colloquium employs a workshop-format that enables students to engage leading scholars in the field of Critical Race Theory. The first part of the semester will involve a general overview of Critical Race Theory. During the remaining meetings, invited scholars will present works-in-progress for discussion. To prepare, students will write short reaction papers that include three questions for further discussion. Final grades depend on the reaction papers, class participation, and attendance. 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.

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In this course, we will examine the relationship between law, public policy, and current issues in education in both K-12 and post-secondary institutions. Major themes will include regulation of education by state and federal government; accreditation; legal oversight through constitutional versus regulatory and case law; and an attorney’s obligation to advise and empower their education clients. Legal issues presented will include but not be limited to contract rights of different employees and students; tort liability management; free speech; free expression of religion; due process; intellectual property rights; Americans with Disabilities Act/Section 504; Title IX; campus safety and privacy; the right to education; and more. Course assessment will include client memos, in-class exercises, and a client advisory including video and written instruction. Class participation in-class and by discussion boards will also factor into final grades.

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FALL 2026: LAW JD 777 A1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026

This seminar is an introduction to comparative law's themes and methods. Accordingly, the seminar is organized in two parts. The readings selected for the first part present theoretical articulations and practical applications of the main methodological approaches relied upon by comparative lawyers. Participants will become acquainted with the "mechanics", as well as the broader implications, of the various ways of comparing: functionalism, structuralism, culturalism, postmodern neo-culturalism and critical comparative law. The materials discussed in the second part explore how these different methodologies play out in recent and heated comparative law debates. Participants will be asked to reflect over the common law-civil law dichotomy and its implications for the debate over the European Civil Code as well as for projects of harmonization, such as the World Bank's "Legal Origins" study; the circulation of legal rules and institutions and the export of constitutional models in Eastern Europe and Iraq; the ambiguous relation between US and European legal cultures and the debate over different ideas of "privacy"; the "West" and the "Orient" in family law reform. 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.

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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.

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FALL 2026: LAW JD 884 A1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026

In this seminar we will study historical and contemporary issues situated at the intersection of race and law. We will also critically examine the role that law has played in creating, maintaining, sustaining, and resisting various systems of power in the United States. Together, we will analyze varying propositions stemming from our legal system, like the claim of systemic oppression, the existence of an egalitarian legal system, and the systemic nature of racial injustice. Moreover, we will examine what role law has played in influencing the conception of race and the settings in which race operates. We will approach these questions through the lens of territorial expansion in the United States, focusing on major movements in the fields of Federal Indian Law, territorial governance, and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments. Final research paper in lieu of exam. UPPERCLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: Students may use this class 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, 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.

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SPRG 2027: LAW JD 878 A1, Jan 11th to Apr 21st 2027

THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Racial Justice & Movement Lawyering Clinic. The Clinic offers students the opportunity to provide legal support to organizations, coalitions, and grassroots groups seeking to challenge forms of subordination and build community power. Clinic fieldwork will vary based on the goals of our clients and movement partners but may involve litigation, policy advocacy, legal research, public education, or infrastructure/capacity-building projects. Under the clinic director’s supervision, students act as the lead attorneys on these projects, meaning that students will be responsible for establishing relationships with partners, identifying project goals, drafting agreements, and executing projects. In this process, students will learn to, among other things: develop litigation and non-litigation strategies; critically analyze the role of lawyers in social movements; identify different theories of social change; engage in legal writing that is persuasive and well-supported by evidence; and communicate complex legal subjects to a range of audiences. Students will also develop their professional identities and explore how they can most effectively show up for clients and community partners given their particular set of skills and experiences. CO-REQUISITE: LAW JD 949 (Clinic Seminar). NOTE: Both the fieldwork and in-class seminar count towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This clinic does not offer the CR/NC/H option.

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FALL 2026: LAW JD 948 A1, Aug 31st to Dec 3rd 2026
SPRG 2027: LAW JD 948 B1, Jan 11th to Apr 21st 2027