Study

"Legal Writing: Craft & Style" is the new moniker for the "Advanced Legal Writing Workshop." This series of thirteen workshops is for 2Ls and 3Ls who wish to hone their legal writing or editing skills. Half of each workshop consists of a teaching component that focuses on topics from clarity to cohesiveness to effective style. The other half is spent working as a group on exercises—flawed sentences or passages from legal documents or articles. In addition to the exercises, required written work includes three short written assignments and peer reviews of each of these using criteria developed over the course of the workshop. These peer reviews will be reviewed in turn by me. In addition, I will be available to work one-on-one with any workshop participant who has a lengthier piece on which he or she would like feedback. The workshop offers two credits. It is not graded.

The workshop might be particularly useful to:

• law review editors,
• students on moot court,
• students writing law-review notes or independent-study- or seminar papers (with the permission of the guiding professor),
• students wishing to polish their writing samples, and
• students wishing to improve the effectiveness of their writing for any reason whatsoever.

Large, multi-jurisdictional law firms face complex issues of regulation and professionalism. Managing and solving those issues require high-level analytical, written, and presentation skills. As in practice, quality written analysis will be paramount, and students will need to perform individually as well as working together with a team.

Students will gain a background in the ABA Model Rules (and state variants) by analyzing and resolving simulated ethical inquiries that might be received by the general counsel’s office of a large firm and presenting their proposed resolution in class. In addition, students working in teams will tackle a more complex, multi-issue inquiry that will require deeper research and a written product, part of which will be drafted as a team and will be revised in response to feedback.

This course examines Professional Responsibility as it applies to representing poor and/or underrepresented clients (in criminal and civil cases), as well as to lawyering for social justice causes, through impact litigation and other means. We will explore the substantive law of Professional Responsibility, focusing on ethical challenges frequently encountered in social justice representation (e.g., representing clients who are uneducated or culturally different than the attorney, practicing with limited resources in an environment of many unmet legal needs, defining who the client is when representing a group or cause, and the tensions created when the requirements of Professional Responsibility are at odds with the attorney's personal morality or vision of social justice).  While we will work mostly from the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, required reading will also include scholarship on the unique ethical and moral dilemmas of social justice lawyers, and students will be encouraged to think critically about the rules of Professional Responsibility and their application in social justice contexts.  Throughout the course, we will consider and practice the lawyering skills needed to ethically represent clients and social causes, through in-class resolution of hypotheticals and experiential learning, such as simulations or role-playing.   Several practicing, social-justice attorneys will join us to guest-speak.

This course examines in detail the "law of lawyering" relating to such issues as the formation of the attorney-client relationship, confidentiality, communications with clients, conflicts of interest, regulation and discipline of attorneys, and numerous other areas relating to the lawyer's role in American society. In addressing these issues, we will consider the extent to which the law governing lawyers derives from the concept of a learned profession, as well as the degree to which the ethics of lawyering may differ from personal ethics and morality. While particular attention will be paid to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the class will also examine other sources of relevant law, including the Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers, court decisions and rules, statutes, and administrative regulations.  Grading is based on a final examination, written work relating to casebook problems and reflections on current issues in legal ethics, and class participation.

 

This course examines the principles of legal ethics and professionalism. Our focus will be on identifying and responding to the key issues faced by a civil litigator, and on the model rules of professional conduct, case law, and ethics opinions that a lawyer must consider in resolving such issues. Topics include the formation and termination of the attorney client relationship, conflicts of interest, and communications with the court and opposing counsel through the discovery and trial process. We will examine the balancing of the duty of advocacy with the duty to the administration of justice. We will also explore issues such as admissions, discipline, and common law firm associate dilemmas such as billing and changing law firms. During the semester, students will prepare two short (3-5 pp) memoranda. There will also be an open book in-class exam at the end of the semester.

A study of how law regulates intimate adult relationships and relationships between parents and children. We will discuss constitutional and statutory rights and restrictions on marriage, adult relationships, adoption, parentage, child custody, dissolution of adult relationships, and financial support for children. We will explore the evolution of family law in relation to racial and gender equality and consider issues of socioeconomic inequality and access to justice.  Grading is based on a final examination and class participation. 

This course will examine the practices and powers of American appellate courts, with a particular emphasis on the federal courts of appeals.  Our discussion will focus on the goals of these institutions and the extent to which individual components of the appellate decision-making process—including oral argument and opinion-writing—further those goals.

We will begin with an overview of the function of appellate courts—why they were created and what we expect of them today.  We will then move to the specific components of appellate adjudication, including mediation, briefing, oral argument, and judgment, as well as the personnel who contribute to the adjudication process.  Finally, we will consider the ways in which the appellate courts have been affected by an increasing caseload, and proposals for alleviating the strain on the courts.

Ultimately, the goal of the course is to expose you to how appellate courts operate and the purported goals of these institutions.  Over the course of the semester, you should also be evaluating what you think are the fundamental objectives of appellate review and whether the current structure of the courts allows them to meet those goals.

Evaluation in the course will be based on a final research paper, which may be used to satisfy the SRWP.

This course will explore the relationship between the law and children’s status, rights, and well-being from a child-centered perspective. The course will introduce students to some of the foundational legal doctrines which govern the relationships among children, their parents, and the state. Through lecture, class discussion, and group presentations, this course will apply those foundational principles in specific contexts, including at school, home, healthcare, and community settings, with a focus on emerging and current issues in children’s law. This course will grapple with the ways in which current legal frameworks do or do not promote children’s rights and health, with a focus on the experiences of vulnerable groups, including LGBTQ+ children, children living in poverty, children of color, children involved in the child welfare and delinquency systems, and children with disabilities. This class will require collaboration in small groups as students work towards a final presentation.

Lawyers face non-legal, analytical issues every day. Business lawyers need to understand a business in order to represent their client properly. Litigators need to judge the best route in adopting a litigation strategy. Family lawyers routinely need to value a business. Environmental lawyers need to understand economic externalities. Social lawyers need familiarity with financial instruments that have positive and negative attributes. Students taking this course will find it foundational in running a business, advising a business, or litigating business matters that go beyond the strict letter of the law. In this sense, this is not your standard doctrinal law school course. Rather, it is designed to give students the tools necessary to interact with the business community and run a company or firm.

The areas of focus include:

• Decision Analysis, Games and Information: We will explore a standard technique that has been developed to organize thinking about decision-making problems and to solve them.
• Accounting: Basic accounting concepts will be introduced, and the relationship between accounting information and economic reality will be examined.
• Microeconomics: This unit presents basic economic concepts--the operation of competitive markets, imperfect competition, and market failures--that are necessary to this understanding.
• Statistics and Artificial Intelligence: We will address the basic statistical methods, including regression analysis, as well as issues that commonly arise when statistics are used in the courtroom. We will also have a brief introduction to statistical learning, which forms the basis for machine learning and artificial intelligence.

This basic introductory survey course is aimed at students who have only a basic background in math (basic high school algebra) and may have majored in humanities and social science as an undergraduate.

This course will examine a number of topics related to the law of animals, including various issues that arise under the laws of property, contracts, torts, and trusts and estates. It will also examine various criminal law issues and constitutional law questions. The class will consider such issues as the definition of "animal" as applicable to anti-cruelty statutes, the collection of damages for harm to animals, establishing standing for animal suits, first amendment protections, and the nuances of various federal laws.

A study of the rules governing federal taxation of gratuitous wealth transfers. The course will examine the trio of related federal taxes: the estate tax, the gift tax, and the generation-skipping transfer tax, as well as the policies, history, and concepts involved in the taxation of wealth transfers.

Pre-req: Federal Income Taxation or other experience working with statutory language and regulations is recommended

This course will explore the relationship between gender and the law, understanding gender in its broadest sense including sex, sexuality, gender identity, and gender queerness. It will focus on sex discrimination doctrines under the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution as well as under federal and state statutory frameworks such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, and cognate state statutes. It will also address the shifting scope of substantive due process doctrine, particularly given the recent Supreme Court Dobbs opinion. Other statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act will also be explored. Constitutional Law is highly recommended as a prerequisite.

The course will center around legal case studies to evaluate the relationship between law and justice in many areas that affect gender minority lives, including: employment, schools, health care, prison, public accommodations, family, youth and aging, and beyond. The emphasis will be on social justice lawyering strategies and the possibilities and limits that litigation, legislation, and policy developments present for work in these areas. Some film is used in class. Evaluation is by an end-of-term, untimed, open book examination, as well as 3 reaction papers assigned throughout the class. Other individual or group projects may also be required. Engaged student discussion and open-mindedness to new, different, and challenging ideas is invited and valued.

This course is designed to provide students with a working knowledge of the major areas of interface between psychiatry and law. Basic concepts of clinical psychiatry and psychopathology will be highlighted throughout the course. The attorney and the psychiatrist roles in the commitment process, right to treatment and right to refuse treatment, competency to stand trial, and criminal responsibility will be explored using a number of methods. Discussion of assigned readings, short lectures, interviews and observation of patients involved in legal proceedings, films, guest speakers, and field trips will form the basis of the course. The students will periodically be asked to use the information from the course together with independent and group research to complete short projects and class exercises.

SciReg Lab teaches students about the use of emerging science and technology in the regulatory agencies through the drafting and submission of comments to federal rule-makings. The comments will be unaligned with any party and are intended to provide the regulatory agencies with unbiased, current, accurate and coherent information about the science underlying the proposed rule. The course is cross-listed in the Law School and Graduate School and the students will be drawn from the sciences, ethics, policy and law to work in interdisciplinary teams. The course will begin with a brief overview of notice-and-comment rulemaking, and how to translate scientific information into the language of courts and agencies. The ethical issues presented by this process will be an important component of the course content. With the assistance of faculty, the students will track pending rulemakings and select proceedings in which to file a comment. A background is science is recommended, but not required.

A wide range of cases raise novel scientific issues, which judges can struggle to resolve. One way to provide courts with independent information and insight regarding complex scientific issues is through the filing friend of the court, or amicus curiae briefs. The purpose of the Amicus Lab is to teach students about the use of emerging science and technology in the courts through the drafting such amicus briefs. We will draft a number of amicus briefs, including to submit to state and federal appellate courts and the US Supreme Court, on topics and in cases where independent expert views could play a useful role. These amicus briefs will be unaligned with any party and are intended to provide the court with unbiased, current, and coherent information about the scientific issue in the case.

We will meet weekly at a time convenient for all of the students in the lab. Students will initially focus upon the preparation of background memoranda on the selected scientific issues. These memoranda will be used to develop draft amicus briefs over the course of the semester. No scientific background is required, but it would be helpful, as would the basic Evidence course.

Critical race theory (CRT), a scholarly movement that began in the 1980s, challenges both the substance and style of conventional legal scholarship.  Substantively, critical race scholars (“race crits”) reject formal equality, individual rights, and color-blind approaches to solving legal problems.  Stylistically, race crits often employ new methodologies for legal scholarship, including storytelling and narrative.  This course introduces CRT’s core principles and explores its possibilities and limitations.  With a heavy focus on writings that shaped the movement, the course will examine the following concepts and theories: storytelling, interest convergence theory, the social construction of race, the black-white paradigm, the myth of the model minority, intersectionality, essentialism, working identity, covering, whiteness and white privilege, colorblindness, microaggressions, and implicit bias.  Students will apply these theories and frameworks to cases and topics dealing with, among other things, first amendment freedoms, affirmative action, employment discrimination, and criminal disparities and inequities.  The course affords students an opportunity to think about the ways in which racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism are inextricably interwoven as well as an opportunity to challenge critically our most basic assumptions about race, law, and justice.

This survey course will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the various alternatives to traditional litigation that are used to resolve civil disputes, including negotiation, mediation, arbitration, collaborative law, and other innovative processes. It is designed primarily for students who wish to gain a basic understanding of the variety of dispute resolution processes available when representing a client. Each week, you will have the opportunity to explore the theoretical basis for and practical operation of different ADR processes through class discussion and in-class exercises. We will also discuss ADR and culture, ODR, drafting ADR clauses in contracts, and dispute resolution system design. Required coursework will include readings, participating in in-class exercises, preparing entries in a weekly conflict resolution journal, and an end-of-semester project. By the conclusion of the course, you should be able to assist a client in choosing the most appropriate ADR process in light of the advantages and disadvantages of each, and will better understand a third-party neutral’s role in facilitating or fashioning a just resolution of a dispute. 

This course will provide students a framework for effective client interviewing and counseling, skills which are foundational to successful lawyering. While lawyers must master substantive and procedural law to gain the confidence of their clients, they must be able to exercise effective communication skills in “real time.”  Legal Interviewing and Counseling will help students learn to plan effective interviewing and counseling sessions, to identify and solve problems collaboratively with clients, and to further develop their abilities to effectively communicate difficult legal and factual information. This course seeks to further understanding of a broad range of communication skills, to facilitate client decision making and implementation of solutions, to manage the professional relationship, and to navigate common ethical issues that arise in the context of legal interviewing and counseling. Structured in-class simulation exercises will allow students to develop and practice these skills in real-world contexts . While each of these skills will be developed over the entirety of any lawyer's career, Legal Interviewing & Counseling aims to help students to jumpstart this development and to gain additional tools needed to ensure effective client relationships when they enter practice. Students will be evaluated on their participation in structured, in-class simulation exercises and discussions; video-taped skills exercises done outsides of class; guided self-assessments; guided reviews of other students' simulation exercises; and a final capstone simulation interview and counseling projects. Students will be required to attend class regularly and to participate consistently in all exercises. Students will be assessed on a C/NC basis. 

This course is intended as an introduction to experimental research, legal theory, and caselaw on jury decision making.  Although the topic overlaps considerably with areas of basic decision making--e.g., the heuristics and biases literature--the focus will be mostly on applied research looking at the decisions of real (or simulated) jurors.

The class will function as an ethics committee considering current issues and ethics inquiries based upon actual disputes. The participants, working in small groups, will draft detailed ethics opinions that the full class will consider, revise, and the like.

This two-credit experiential course will focus on the analytical, writing and presentation, and interview skills frequently used in practice while also introducing students to the general statutory and regulatory frameworks governing securities litigation and enforcement.  Litigating private securities claims and defending SEC enforcement actions are an important component of most sophisticated litigation practice; these actions have high stakes, and are almost inevitable for many corporate clients.  Writing assignments and presentations will be drawn from one hypothetical class action problem, and one hypothetical enforcement action problem.

Issues in the legal regulation of sexuality and gender identity are among the most contested in US law today. Issues which either have been litigated in US courts in recent years or are currently being litigated include the ability of same-sex couples to marry, people’s access to contraception or abortion, as well as the ability of LGBTQ persons to access health care, public accommodations, employment, and education without discrimination. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of the legal regulation of human sexuality and gender identity. It examines the historical and jurisprudential foundations of these legal constructs with insights developed through feminist and queer theory. These disciplines will be deployed to better understand the scope of the rights to sexual and gender equality, liberty, and autonomy available to people not only in theory, but in fact, and not only at the national level, but at the state and local levels.

This seminar will focus on the role of the legislative and administrative process in family creation. We will examine situations in which a child born in one family becomes part of another through mechanisms such as adoption, foster care, or surrogacy. Particular attention will be given to intercountry adoption and surrogacy, which raise complex issues of law and policy, including those relating to the definition of family, state sovereignty, immigration and citizenship, human rights, and ethics and transparency. Not all countries participating in intercountry adoption and surrogacy are subject to relevant international treaties, and even where treaties are in effect, implementation has been characterized by conflict and delay. At the local level, regulation through oversight of private agencies, adoptive families, and third party intermediaries has been uneven. Throughout our examination of these issues, we will focus attention on the ways in which race and class have shaped policy, often in ways that harm families and children.

This seminar aims to give students the opportunity to understand the policymaking process by closely examining what has transpired in the field of family creation in the last 15-20 years, and considering what the future may hold, both within the U.S. and abroad. Students will be expected to explore and understand the intersection between policy, treaty, and national law, as well as the interrelationship between the legislative and administrative processes. Because the seminar will examine not only the law within the U.S. but that in other countries, students will be able to explore the differences in culture and policy that exist nation to nation and consider how those differences affect these inherently international issues relating to family creation.

Readings will draw from the United States and international sources and will include existing and proposed legislation, existing and proposed administrative regulations, treaty provisions, court decisions interpreting these sources, academic and journalistic writings, and audiovisual materials.

The objective of the course is to introduce students to important issues concerning the theory and doctrine of statutory interpretation through exposure to cutting-edge legal scholarship. The colloquium will feature bi-weekly presentations of works-in-progress by leading scholars of statutory interpretation, legislation, and administrative law. In the week preceding each presentation, students will read and discuss foundational materials (a mix of academic commentary and case law) on topics related to the work-in-progress.

Students may opt to prepare six short (5-10 page) papers in response to each work-in-progress, which would be due in advance of the presentation and used to stimulate discussion. Alternatively, students may write one longer research paper (roughly 30 pages) dealing with a topic of their choice related to the themes of the class. Students who take the latter option may use the colloquium to satisfy the upper-level writing requirement.

During the past 40 years, environmental litigation in the federal courts of the United States has played an important role in shaping our quality of life.  Federal statutes designed to improve air and water quality, manage waste, protect species, and establish rules for the management of ocean resources have spawned numerous federal cases – some filed by affected industry, some by the government, and others filed by conservation groups and private citizens.  The resulting precedents affect many aspects of the environment in which we live.

This course introduces students to the progression of a hypothetical environmental case in United States federal courts.  The course begins with the appearance of a potential client, addresses several considerations relevant to a decision whether to file a complaint, examines discovery planning and execution, studies the preparation of dispositive motions, and concludes with an overview of the appeal process.  The course assumes that the hypothetical case will be decided on motions for summary judgment or for injunctive relief.  Therefore, class discussions focus on the manner in which such a case unfolds, with particular attention to developing both the facts and the theory of the case, framing pleadings, and designing and managing discovery.  The course explores these subjects from the perspective of counsel for defendants as well as for plaintiffs.  Students should emerge from the course better equipped to handle various practical aspects of litigation.

This seminar will focus on the most important and most controversial aspects of evidence law, including new technologies like AI, and electronic/digital evidence. The seminar also explores controversial areas of the evidence rules where change has been called for (sometimes for decades) but has not yet occurred.

Writing is integral to most aspects of state and federal civil law practice including communicating effectively with clients, asserting clients' rights, and advocating for clients in litigation. This two-credit hour advanced writing course helps prepare students for the rigors of legal analysis and writing in general civil practice by providing a variety of writing experiences including opinion and demand letters, pleadings, motions, and trial briefs.  Writing assignments will involve initial drafts, instructor feedback, peer review, and final revisions with students building a portfolio of their work during the course of the semester. Research skills will be reviewed and practiced. In addition to content analysis and structure, emphasis will be placed on the ethical and professional considerations involved with each assignment.

This writing and experiential course will provide students with the opportunity to practice several different types of persuasive writing used in federal litigation. The students will work on a hypothetical case involving an employment discrimination matter. The students will follow the case from the administrative agency level, to the filing of a complaint in federal court, through the discovery process, and culminating in the filing and arguing of a motion for summary judgment. In addition to writing, the students will have the opportunity to interview a client and a witness and to practice their oral advocacy skills in a mock meeting with a partner and a mock hearing. This course will be useful for anyone interested in practicing in federal court and/or pursuing a federal clerkship at the trial court level.