Alphabetical Course Descriptions | Courses By Subject Area | First Year Courses | Upper Level Courses

FIRST YEAR COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

(S) = Seminar

1L Required Courses:

Civil Procedure

4 sem. hrs.

This course is devoted to a consideration of the basic problems of civil procedure. Pleading, discovery, multi-party actions, trial practice, and judgments are considered in terms of function and technique. The course is also designed to introduce the student to underlying problems such as jurisdiction, the choice of law in the federal system, and the role of courts as lawmaking institutions.

Constitutional Law

4 sem. hrs.

A study of basic issues of federal constitutional law. Major topics will be: the role of courts in the interpretation of enforcement of the U.S. Constitution; the scope of federal legislative powers under the Constitution; federalism limitations placed on the powers of state and local governments; individual civil, political, and human rights under the U.S. Constitution, with the primary emphasis on the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Contracts

4 sem. hrs.

A study of the legal protection accorded promissory arrangements. The course deals with the reconciliation of the competing values of private ordering through consent-based agreements and of public regulation of exchange transactions. Subject matter considered includes the interpretation of contract terms, the effect of changed or unforeseen circumstances on contract obligations, and the remedies which the law provides for breach of contract. Also included are limitations on contract enforcement because of unconscionability and bad faith. The course emphasizes both the contract in litigation and the influence of contract law on transactional planning. The Uniform Commercial Code is prominent in the legal sources studied.

Contracts

Criminal Law

4 sem. hrs.

This course will examine the criminal law as a device for defining and controlling harmful behavior. Attention is given to the theoretical justifications for and the effectiveness of punishment, the foundations of culpability, the basic principles of criminal liability, and the definition of offenses and defenses.

Criminal Law

Legal Writing: Yearlong

2 sem. hrs.

Individual written work is done under the immediate supervision of an Arthur Littleton and H. Clayton Louderback Legal Writing Instructor. During the fall semester, the development of skills in legal analysis and research and the use of legal materials in the preparation of legal memoranda are emphasized. The spring semester is devoted to written and oral advocacy, in both trial court and appellate court settings.

Property

4 sem. hrs.

This course explores the legal institution of property, primarily through an examination of the possession, ownership, and use of land. Topics may include different ways of acquiring property, such as by capture, discovery, creation, adverse possession, and prescription; estates in land; rights in other persons' land; landlord/tenant; basic land transactions; public and private control of land use; and eminent domain.

Torts

4 sem. hrs.

This course examines the doctrinal, theoretical, and policy dimensions of non-promissory civil liability for harm to persons, property, and certain intangible interests.

1L Elective Courses:

Administrative Law

3 sem. hrs.

We live in an administrative state, populated by thousands of governmental bodies that collectively exercise pervasive authority over the entire economy and the lives of every American. Unlike courts, which enjoy explicit constitutional independence, administrative agencies constitute a constitutionally ambiguous "fourth branch of government." Also unlike courts, most agencies have authority to wield a wide variety of regulatory powers other than adjudication, including rulemaking, licensing, advice-giving, and prosecution. "Administrative law" is the body of constitutional, statutory, Executive, and "common law" principles that constrain and thereby seek to legitimate the exercise of these powers. This course will be a critical examination of these principles. Topics include: the place of agencies in our tripartite structure of government, the choice between rulemaking and adjudication as devices for making policy, procedural requirements for the exercise of various administrative powers, and judicial review of administrative decisions.

Chinese Law

3 sem. hrs.

For thirty years, Chinese laws and legal institutions have developed rapidly, if unevenly, amid—and in response to—China’s breathtaking economic transformation and integration the outside world, and the social and political challenges and consequences that “reform” and “opening” have produced. Some aspects of legal change in contemporary China are unprecedented while others perhaps echo influences from earlier periods, including the PRC’s first decades, the initial impact of the West, the broad sweep of Chinese tradition, and diverse Chinese challenges to that tradition. This course provides a brief overview of classical Chinese thought on law, governance and economic regulation, the legal norms and institutions of law and government during the late imperial period, and the influence of Western ideas and pressures and of Chinese reformers and revolutionaries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of the course focuses on the PRC years, with primary emphasis on the contemporary “reform era.” For this period, the course addresses selected topics such as criminal law and other means of social control, the legal regulation and promotion of economic activity, law and government accountability, and legal aspects of regulating China’s external economic relations. Throughout, political, economic and social contexts are emphasized. The exam will be open-book, essay. It will be take-home with a lenght limit. Class participation, partly in the form of panels for specific weeks and topics, will count toward the final grade.

Comparative Legal Institutions

3 sem. hrs.

This course is designed to examine a range of legal institutions from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. It is not a traditional course in comparative law, in that it focuses not so much on particular rules of substantive law but on the structure of different legal systems and the consequences of those structural differences for law and society. Readings will be drawn from legal and social science literature, including works from anthropology, economics, political science and sociology. The course will explicitly cover non-Western legal traditions to an extent not found in conventional comparative law courses. Furthermore, American institutions are explicitly included in the comparison: this is not simply a course in foreign law. The course will conclude with reflections on what a comparative perspective tells us about American legal institutions.

Environmental Law

3 sem. hrs.

This course focuses on both the substance and process of environmental law in the United States. The goal is for students to become familiar with the basic structure of federal environmental law and regulation, both to prepare for legal counseling and advocacy as well as to be able to engage in policy evaluation and design of environmental law. The course will cover key federal environmental statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Superfund, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, as well as selected EPA regulations. The course will focus on the major legal and policy issues underlying environmental statutes, as well as on legal methods of statutory interpretation. Classroom attendance and preparation is expected. There will be an in-class exam.

Intro to IP Law and Policy

3 sem. hrs.

This course starts from the premise that the law and policy of intellectual property is increasingly becoming an important component of a modern legal education. As such, the course will present a broad overview of the contemporary doctrinal and policy challenges facing intellectual property in an era of rapidly changing technology. The course is not intended to replace (or be a prerequisite for) any of the basic IP courses - instead, the class will be structured around several of the major recent disputes over the patent, copyright, and trademark laws, considering these from both a doctrinal and a social policy perspective.

Law and Society in Japan

3 sem. hrs.

Through an examination of law and legal institutions in a non-Western setting, this course emphasizes the complex relationship between law, culture, politics and economics in advanced industrialized democracies. We will look broadly at debates involving constitutional and criminal law, as well as more specific legal conflicts involving women’s rights, HIV/AIDS, and a variety of other issues. The course reader consists of articles by legal academics, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists and other scholars; translated cases and legal documents; and historical materials. In addition, we will view several films that offer a valuable perspective on Japanese law and society. There are no prerequisites for this course, and students with no background in Japanese or Asian studies are welcome. For those who would like a general overview of contemporary Japan, I suggest J. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II; J.A.A. Stockwin, Governing Japan: Divided Politics in a Major Economy; C. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle. There will be a takeaway exam. This is a 1L elective course and 1Ls receive priority in enrollment.

Legal Responses to Inequality

3 sem. hrs.

This course will study legal material as expressive of, and as supportive of, differing concepts of equality and its role as a social value, rather than as simply part of a course of doctrinal development or a system of analytical reasoning. Its premise is that differences in those concepts are often not recognized, and the contestability and bases of one's approach to equality issues are often not acknowledged. Substantively, the course will include aspects of legal regulation affecting the status of racial, religious and ethnic "minorities," women, gay and lesbian people, and people perceived as disabled, as well as the interaction between the law and inequality in the distribution of wealth and income. It will do this in part by examining "antidiscrimination," "equal protection," or "poverty" law, but will focus also on issues of equality implicit in such mainstream first-year subjects as Procedure and Contracts. To add the course after it begins, you must have attended classes from the first day.

Legislation

3 sem. hrs.

This course examines issues relating to the enactment, application and interpretation of legislation, primarily at the federal level. The course will introduce students to the basic contours of Congressional lawmaking practice, theoretical models of the legislative process, the application and interpretation of statutes by the executive branch, and numerous aspects of judicial statutory interpretation. Students will explore and critique the different methods and canons that courts apply in construing statutes and consider issues such as the appropriate degree of deference to administrative interpretations, judicial use of legislative history in construction, and interaction between the courts and Congress. The basic text will be the Eskridge, Frickey & Garrett casebook, but students will also read selected legal and/or political science articles presenting current theories of legislative process and interpretation, and review examples of current cases and statutory debates. Grades will be based on an examination at the end of the semester.

Philosophy of Law

3 sem. hrs.

In this course we will examine the phenomenon of law from a philosophical perspective, as well as certain philosophical topics that are closely related to law. We will begin by looking at some of the classical philosophical questions about the nature of law, through the lens of readings drawn mainly from contemporary analytic jurisprudence. Drawing on the work of such writers as H.L.A. Hart, Ronald Dworkin, Joseph Raz, and John Finnis, we will, in this section of the course, ask such questions as the following: What is the relationship between law and morality? How can we best account for the apparent normativity of law? What is the nature of the authority that law claims for itself? Is there a general moral obligation to obey the law? In the second half of the course, we will examine a number of philosophical topics that are closely related to law. These are likely to include the following: What is the nature of justice? What is the relationship between justice and law? What is the nature of a right, both in morality and in law? What theory of individual responsibility is presupposed by the criminal law? What is the best justification for the practice of criminal punishment? What is the best justification for the institution of private property?

Privacy

3 sem. hrs.

The study of privacy law serves several purposes. Most importantly, it introduces students to an important area of legal practice. Not only is privacy law now a recognized area of legal practice in its own right, but knowledge of privacy law is frequently called for in the practice of health, business and intellectual property law. The study of privacy law serves another purpose: developing a better understanding of the concept of privacy and the controversies--some philosophical, some political-- surrounding its application in the law. The course is divided into three sections or "chapters." Our study begins with state common law. State common law is an historic source of privacy protections. Chapter 1 examines the origins of state privacy law in the late 19th century and its subsequent growth until today. The chapter considers the four common law invasion of privacy torts recognized in most states and by the American Law Institute’s Restatement of (Second) of Torts. The chapter also examines the closely affiliated state common law of publicity and confidentiality. Chapter 1 samples major statutes enacted by state legislatures both to create privacy rights akin to those recognized in the common law and to supplement them. We move next to the federal constitution, a crucial major source of privacy law. Chapter 2 takes on the voluminous privacy jurisprudence spawned by the Bill of Rights-- most importantly, the First and Fourth Amendments’ jurisprudence of associational, physical, and informational privacy. This chapter also features the often-controversial Fourteenth Amendment equal protection and substantive due process decisional privacy jurisprudence. It concludes with a consideration of state constitutions that, state courts have held, significantly expand privacy protection beyond federal limits. The journey ends after an encounter with the federal privacy statutes, a dynamic source of privacy and data protection law. Chapter 3 examines nearly a dozen federal privacy statutes, covering government record management; health, education, and financial data; video rentals; communications; the internet; and surveillance. The chapter touches on some state counterparts to federal legislation and the agency rules that implement them.

Public International Law

3 sem. hrs.

This course introduces students to the legal rules and institutions that govern the international political system. The course provides a formal introduction to international law and emphasizes the relationships between law and politics in the behavior of states, institutions, and individuals in world politics. International law is both more relevant and more interesting today than ever before. From the war against terror to the war in Iraq; from the challenges of free trade to the dangers of environmental destruction; from prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to former heads of state appearing in court, international law has a direct bearing on many of the key issues in international affairs. This course examines how international law is created, how it operates, and what effect it has on these and other issues in contemporary international relations. The course begins with an introduction to the nature and structure of the international legal system. Topics include: the subjects and forms of international law, the key institutional actors, the theoretical background to the international legal system, and the relationships between international law and international relations. The second part of the course turns to substantive legal issues. Topics include: international economic law and the debates surrounding the WTO; international criminal law and the International Criminal Court; the protection of human rights; the use of force and the invasions of Kosovo and Iraq; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the future of the United Nations. Additional topics may be added or substituted if international events and student interest so warrant.