Large, multi-jurisdictional law firms face complex issues of regulation and professionalism. Managing and solving those issues require keen analytical, litigation, and transactional drafting skills. This course will offer an opportunity to practice those skills while gaining a background in the law governing lawyers. Students will participate in a two-credit, experiential seminar that can be used for either ethics or experiential credit. 

Students will first 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. Then, for the bulk of the course, students working in teams will tackle a more complex, multi-issue inquiry that will require deeper research, a simulated internal investigation, a presentation, and a written memorandum. The course will conclude with revising the memorandum in response to feedback and a transactional drafting exercise such as an engagement letter and fee agreement involving client intake issues.

An introduction to federal income taxation, with emphasis on the determination of income subject to taxation, deductions in computing taxable income, the proper time period for reporting income and deductions, and the proper taxpayer on which to impose the tax.

Many attorneys are required to evaluate financial data, notably financial statements from corporations, on a regular basis. The need is not limited to corporate attorneys; indeed litigators in securities, antitrust, malpractice, or general commercial litigation frequently must analyze financial information. This course serves to both introduce basic accounting principles and practices and their relationship to the law, as well as to study a number of contemporary accounting problems relating to financial disclosure and the accountant's professional responsibility. Students with accounting degrees, MBAs or who have taken more than a couple of accounting courses are not permitted to enroll. Also, Business Essentials may not be taken concurrently with this course.

This course will provide an introduction to the dynamic and rapidly evolving field of cyber law and policy.  The course will be team-taught by multiple instructors with expertise in various government and industry sectors, and will consist of three major components:  (1) an overview of today’s threat landscape and the legal frameworks governing approaches to data breaches, cybercrime by state and non-state actors, and cyberwarfare; (2) an exploration of legal and policy issues surrounding the collection of personal data, with a focus on both domestic and international data privacy protections; and (3) a study of the impact of data-intensive emerging technologies (e.g., Internet of Things, platform media, machine learning, fintech), with an emphasis on how law and policy can ensure technology is used ethically and fairly.  Real-world case studies will be employed to allow students to weigh in on some of the most pressing issues of our time (e.g., election interference, health data collection).   This course is introductory in nature and no technical background is necessary. 

Note: Students who have taken Law 609, Readings in Cyber Law with Stansbury, may not take Law 316, Intro to Cyber Law. 

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 surveys international intellectual property law as reconfigured by the new universal standards of protection embodied in the TRIPS Agreement (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), which is a component of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization of 1994. Although some contextual materials on trade policy will be read, the course will not focus on general principles of international trade law. Rather, it will focus on the legal and economic implications of the new international intellectual property standards in the light of prior Conventions, with particular regard to such topics as patents; copyrights and related rights (including software, databases, sound recordings); trademarks; integrated circuit designs; trade secrets; and industrial designs. The new WIPO treaties (Dec. 1996) governing copyright law in cyberspace will also be covered. Other topics will include the interface with antitrust law; the enforcement provisions (i.e., civil and criminal due process); dispute resolution (including all the new WTO decisions on intellectual property); and the overall implications for global competition between developed and developing countries in an integrated world market.

For lawyers in every type of law practice, the ability to negotiate effectively is an essential skill. As a lawyer, you will negotiate when you try to settle a lawsuit, close a merger, or arrange a plea bargain. You will negotiate with counterparts, clients, and co-workers. You will negotiate with service providers and the “system” – the court, the government, or your community. And, you will continue to negotiate with your friends and family. In this highly interactive seminar, we will explore the theories, skills, and ethics involved in legal negotiation. With limited exceptions, in each class you will participate in a role-play simulation of increasing complexity, experiment with new techniques, and then reflect on what negotiation strategies worked best for you. Through this process, you will not only gain insight into your own negotiation style, you will develop the toolkit you need to approach each new negotiation with confidence.

Even without a pandemic, negotiating by electronic means has become a common way of how lawyers do business. This requires lawyers to be versatile and able to negotiate by email, telephone, and videoconference, to evaluate the pros and cons of each, and to select the most appropriate technology (or combination of technologies) given the particular parties and circumstances. Because this course will be offered entirely online, you will get significant practice negotiating by videoconference. You will also have opportunities to negotiate by telephone and email.  By the end of the semester, you will be comfortable negotiating in a digital world.

Because of the nature of the course, the amount of information delivered during the first class period, the importance of participating in the first role-play simulation during the first class period, and the typical waitlists for enrollment in the course, attendance at the first class is absolutely required. A student who fails to attend the first class without prior consent of the instructor will forfeit his or her place in the class. (Working for an additional week in the summer and call-back interviews are not acceptable excuses for missing the first class.) Students who are on the waitlist for the course are encouraged to attend the first class, and those who do will be given preference to fill open slots in the class. There is a shortened drop period for this course so that students who are waitlisted can enroll before the second class occurs. Thus, students may drop this course without permission only before the second class.

Because of the similarities between this course and the negotiation course taught at the Fuqua School of Business, a law student may not receive law school credit for both courses.

The Course will provide a general overview of persisting development challenges in Low and Middle-Income Countries, and the shared global responsibility under the Agenda 2030 to reconcile conflicting economic, social, and ecological objectives. It will focus on the roles of and partnerships between various actors of development finance, such as government agencies, multilateral development banks, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and impact investors; and familiarize students with development finance instruments, such as budget aid, grants, loans, and blended finance mechanisms. The Course will address critical views on Aid Effectiveness as well as issues of Policy Coherence for Development in developed countries.

Requirements for one credit:

- Two 3-page essays: the first to be submitted on or before September 7, 2020 (15% of final grade); the second to be submitted on or before October 15, 2020 (15% of final grade);

- One 10-page paper to be submitted on or before December 10, 2020 (40% of final grade);

- Active participation in class discussions (30% of final grade);

- There will be no final exam.

Requirements for a second credit (optional):

- One-on-one online (video) presentation to professor of approx. 25 minutes

- Topic proposed by student in the field of Development Finance

- Time of presentation between November 1st and 25th, 2020 (the exact date to be determined by student and professor)

- Written outline and bibliography of presentation to be submitted to professor no later than two days prior to presentation

- Grading: pass/fail