Courses Catalog
sort by course number219 - Appellate Advocacy LAWR III (2 hours)
Experience in the preparation, research, and writing of an appellate brief and in oral argument before an appellate court. Participation in the intramural Stanley Moot Court competition is an option in the Fall. This course satisfies the LAWR III Requirement.
420 - Business Drafting LAWR III (2 hours)
This course focuses on legal drafting in a business setting. In the first part of the course (30-35%), students will learn certain basic principles of contract drafting, including planning, editing, usage of terms, avoiding ambiguities, and style. In the remainder of the course (65-70%), students will learn the structures of, and how to draft, a range of typical business contracts. Students will also learn certain skills that business lawyers regularly use in dealing with clients and opposing counsel. This course will satisfy the LAWR III requirement.
425 - Contracts and Commercial Transactions LAWR III (2 hours)
This “best practices” course introduces students to commercial law and to the structuring, negotiation, drafting, and review of common commercial agreements. These agreements include: (1) non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements, (2) employment agreements, (3) services agreements, (4) agreements for the sale of goods, and (5) lending and security agreements. In addition to exploring applicable law and theory, students analyze, draft, redline, and actively discuss actual commercial contracts. In so doing, students explore both the specific effects of various contractual provisions and the potential broader commercial implications of such provisions. If not taken to satisfy LAWR III, this course will also satisfy the Practical Skills requirement. This course is a writing course with no exam. Contracts I and II are prerequisites.
476 - Criminal Litigation Drafting LAWR III (2 hours)
The primary objective of the course is to take the students to the next level of advocacy in their research, analysis, and writing using the setting of criminal cases. Although primarily a drafting class, it will also include at least one oral component. The course will also feature several guest speakers from both the prosecution and defense bars as well as the trial or appellate bench. These speakers will provide practical insights into the drafting of documents in the world of criminal litigation as well as methods of persuading in criminal cases.
Students will have complete at least two independent writing projects and one oral presentation. Each of these efforts will be individually critiqued. Students will also be exposed to specific topics in advanced legal analysis, writing, and persuasion. Students will gain the practical skills that will help them succeed in criminal litigation.
Students will hone their written advocacy skills in the context of practical criminal litigation. The initial class sessions will involve a factual and legal scenario that will form the basis for sessions on brainstorming, litigation strategies, issue formulation, and research planning. The two writing projects will involve two different research problems and the preparations of a motion to suppress evidence and a motion in limine. Students will draft a motion with an accompanying memorandum of law for either the prosecution or the defense regarding each of these two research problems. Students will also make a formal oral argument on one of the two motions in a litigation setting before a sitting judge or practicing attorney.
486 - Discrimination Law: Principles and Practice LAWR III (3 hours)*
This LAWR III course will explore principles of discrimination law and allow students to put them into practice through fun written exercises and skill simulations. Topics of discussion will center upon federal anti-discrimination laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which will be explored from both a client counseling and litigation perspective. Diverse exercises will address a vast array of interesting topics from developing lawful appearance policies and recruiting practices at the workplace to conducting discovery. Students will even enjoy the unique opportunity to conduct a mock accessibility audit and to present an opening statement in a famous discrimination case. Students will conclude the course by giving a mock CLE presentation on a discrimination law topic of their choice. (The course has no pre-requisites but is closed to students who have previously taken 448 Diversity and Discrimination.)
* This course may be offered for 2 hours during some years.
489 - Entertainment Law Drafting LAWR III (2 hours)
This course is intended to provide students with a general understanding of some of the skills required in transactional law (with a focus on entertainment), including how to analyze, edit, and draft purchase agreements, employment agreements, cease and desist letters, sweepstakes rules, guest releases, and media licenses. This course cannot be taken if you have taken Business Drafting (420).
498 - Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Law (2 hours)
This course offers an overview of the historical, legal, and policy framework for food and agriculture in the United States. Agricultural and food laws and regulations play a vital role in determining both the health outcomes for our nation and the level of environmental impact to shared natural resources such as air, water, soil, and biodiversity. The course discusses federal environmental statutes in the context of food and agricultural production, and provides an introduction to the U.S. Farm Bill, pesticides, farmed animal welfare, genetically modified foods, food access, food safety, and labeling schemes.
427 - Legal Writing for Judicial Chambers LAWR III (2 hours)
This course is an intensive writing course that simulates the work of a judicial clerk. Students research, draft, and edit a bench memo, a majority and dissenting opinion in a state appeal, and an order in a federal trial court case. Students also observe an oral argument. Guest speakers (judges and law clerks) address students several times during the semester.
553 - Litigation Drafting LAWR III (2 hours)*
Legal drafting in the litigation setting. Students will be required to draft and evaluate typical litigation documents. This course satisfies the Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research III requirement. Students can take both Litigation Drafting and Pre-trial Practice and Procedure.
* This course may be offered for 3 hours during some years.
478 - Public Interest Drafting LAWR III (2 hours)
This course is a 2-credit, seminar-sized, workshop-style legal analysis and writing course which focuses on public interest legal writing, working with underrepresented clients, and social justice/poverty themes.
488 - Racial Justice Advocacy LAWR III (2 hours)
This course will give students further opportunities to develop their legal writing and analysis skills in the context of analyzing seemingly race neutral issues using Critical Race Theory (CRT) techniques. Such techniques include not only considering the race of those involved in the litigation, but also racial stereotyping, the case’s historical context, implicit bias, and other relevant factors that might implicate racial issues. The goal is to help students understand how the tenets of CRT can be useful as an analytical tool in crafting a legal analysis or argument.
484 - Real Estate Drafting LAWR III (2 hours)
This course is designed to satisfy LAWR 3. It is geared to teach drafting from the point of view of a commercial real estate attorney. In this context, drafting includes both drafting your own documents, as wells as re-drafting documents submitted to you by other parties (including how to spot issues when re-drafting a document). The types of real estate documents that will be covered include a broad sampling of purchase contracts, leases, loan documents and deeds/easements. The class will review core concepts of real estate law that must be considered in drafting a binding and enforceable real estate contract.
480 - Selected Topics in Health Law LAWR III (2 hours)
This writing-intensive course focuses on several hot topics in health law, including public health issues, physician employment contracts, regenerative medicine and the right to try, and telemedicine. The content units will be taught through a series of simulations and case files. The course will meet for once a week for a 2-hour class, during the spring semester. While learning substantive health care law, the students will also draft and/or critique both transactional and litigation-based documents.
7525 - Selected Topics in Health Law [Summer Abroad 2019 - London] (3 hours)
This course presupposes no specific legal, medical, or scientific knowledge and has no prerequisite. The course will introduce selected topics in the area of health law in a comparative manner that will complement other health law courses taught at the law school. The course will also satisfy the requirement for LAWR III or may be used to satisfy LAWR IV. As such, there will be no final exam. Instead, the course will require a couple of short drafting or critiquing assignments prepared in London and a final paper due in late August or early September. The final paper will be a scholarly paper exploring a pre-approved health law topic. The student will, of course, receive guidance in drafting the paper.
This course will explore health care practices and systems in both developed and developing countries. For the developed countries, we will examine different types of health care systems and how they compare to the U.S. with respect to their structure, research and development of new drugs and biologics, public health systems, and overall effectiveness. For developing countries, we will look at the devastating effect of poverty on health, as well as how clinical research trials that originate in developed nations may exploit third-world populations. The students will have a few short drafting or critiquing assignments during the course, and a final paper.
7592 - Selected Topics in Human Rights Law [Summer Abroad 2019 - Venice] (3 hours)
This course presupposes no specific legal knowledge and has no prerequisite. The course will introduce broad issues in the area of human rights and will complement the International Human Rights course taught by Professor Knox. The course will also satisfy the requirement for LAWR III or may be used to satisfy LAWR IV. As such, there will be no final exam. Instead, the course will require a couple of brief reflection papers prepared in Venice and a final paper due in late August or early September. The final paper, if the student desires to satisfy the LAWR III requirement, will be a draft of a human rights claim filed at the European Court of Human Rights. The student will, of course, receive the necessary guidance to draft the claim.
The course will begin with a reading of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” to locate early modern ideas of human integrity and community. We will then study the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the role of Eleanor Roosevelt in bringing the document to signature. We will discuss the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) and several cases decided by the Strasbourg court. We will examine the Nuremberg trials and the birth of the International Criminal Court. Finally, we will look closely at the contemporary human rights issues presented by the refugee and migrant experiences in Europe, and especially in Italy. Since the Venice Biennale will be open while we are in Venice, we will visit the various pavilions, see the ancillary exhibits, and relate our visits to contemporary human rights issues. The reflection papers will focus on the experience of art and how art represents and problematizes human rights.
