Course Offerings

Books about crime often grab the public’s attention, but how much truth do they convey? This course will explore the stories that both crime novels and true crime books tell and the reality of the criminal legal system behind those stories.

This course focuses on all aspects of criminal litigation beginning in the immediate period following arrest up to trial from the perspective of both the prosecution and the defense. Coursework will involve preparing for and conducting committal hearings, bond hearings, and various motions and other hearings commonly encountered in criminal litigation practice. There will also be class components touching on building relationships with clients/victims and strategy in plea negotiations. The course is taught by former prosecutors, defense attorneys, and two sitting Superior Court Judges for the Western Judicial Circuit and will be based upon a mock criminal case created from actual cases litigated by the instructors. This course is pass/fail and will be graded on class attendance, preparedness, and participation. The course will meet bi-weekly for two hours for a total of 7 class sessions over the course of the semester.

A study of criminal process rights that apply during the interaction between law enforcement and individual suspects. The emphasis is on the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, due process, the right to counsel and other rights that are implicated during the investigation, stop, arrest and interrogation stages of a law enforcement investigation, typically prior to formal prosecution.

A study of criminal process beginning with bringing of formal charges and concluding with adjudication of the guilt or innocence of the accused. Emphasis on prosecutorial discretion; preliminary hearing and grand jury procedures; joinder and severance; plea bargaining; criminal discovery; right to speedy trial, assistance of counsel, confrontation, and trial by jury; double jeopardy; and sentencing. Criminal Procedure I is not a prerequisite.

This course will examine various aspects of the state sentencing process as it pertains to criminal charges and convictions. It will provide an overview of the legal and societal objectives underlying the imposition of sentences. This course will also explore (1) factors deemed relevant to sentencing decisions such as race, criminal history, and applicable minimum and maximum punishments, (2) the various forms of punishment that comprise sentencing, (3) the collateral consequences that sentencing has on impacted individuals, and (4) the role defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges have in sentencing individuals charged with crimes. The course will briefly discuss the differences between the federal and state sentencing processes. This course aims to be an interactive discussion with students and there will be a final graded paper

Crimmigration refers to the convergence of the criminal and immigration systems. Students in this course will learn to analyze the constitutional, statutory, and regulatory provisions implicated by noncitizens' interactions with the criminal justice system. They will also develop the foundation to debate the policies that animate crimmigration.

This course will explore how changes in technology challenge the law's traditional approaches to combating criminal activity, enforcing criminal law, and balancing the rights of the public against the demands of justice. Topics will include electronic surveillance, the Fourth Amendment and technology, cybersecurity, hacking, cyberbullying, criminal copyright law, personal and data privacy, jurisdiction, and civil liberties online. No technical background is necessary. The primary evaluative mechanism for this course will be an examination.

My company has been hacked! What do we do? The FBI informed us our information is being sold on the dark web. How do we respond? Is our company ready for a significant cybersecurity incident? This seminar will focus on cybersecurity incident response by thrusting students into a mock cybersecurity incident and challenging students to consider and provide advice on risk management and legal compliance issues. Students will discuss and strategize about interactions with forensic investigators, law enforcement, regulators, public relations, insurance carriers, and other potential stakeholders, and how to prepare to defend a company in the wake of a significant cybersecurity incident.

This course is a ten-credit course: two credits in a weekly two-hour seminar and eight credits earned at an assigned full-time placement.

Countries around the world are drafting or re-drafting their constitutions. This class considers what should be in those constitutions, and how countries might consider drafting those constitutions. Reading will include constitutional text, cases and commentaries from the United States and from abroad. Requirements for the course include reading, a reaction paper, a short research paper, and several constitution-drafting exercises.

This course examines complex corporate transactions and contracts - that is, "deals." The first component presents a framework for evaluating alternative transaction structures, including transaction costs, information economics, risk sharing and incentives, property rights, and finance. Students then apply these concepts to "live" deals negotiated by alumni in transactional legal practice. Corporations is a prerequisite for the course. Securities Regulation is helpful, but not required.

Examination of concepts of democracy and equal citizenship through the prism of the U.S. Constitution. Students will examine the rights and responsibilities of membership in the American civic community and how those rights and responsibilities have changed over time. Examination of each of these conflicts will center on their relationship to the rights and duties embodied in the U.S. Constitution.

This is a three-hour credit course in which graduate education and law students will learn a wide and diverse spectrum of special education and disability law and its application, including but not limited to, a comparison of the IDEA and Section 504; the school district’s child find requirements; eligibility requirements under the IDEA and Section 504, procedural requirements for conducting school and independent educational evaluations; legal requirements for developing and implementing an Individualized Educational Program (IEP); related services for students with disabilities; what constitutes a free appropriate public education; discipline of students with disabilities; best practices for developing a functional behavioral assessment and behavior intervention plan; overrepresentation of minorities in special education; racial disparity in administering school discipline; School-to-Prison Pipeline; determining the least restrictive environment for students with disabilities; alternative dispute resolution and due process complaint procedures; disability discrimination in public schools; confidentiality of student records, surveys and evaluations under the FERPA and PPRA, and an overview of significant United States Supreme Court cases in special education law.

Students explore the modern ADR movement and its applications in law, government, business, community, and other spheres. Surveys the history of dispute resolution, various DR processes, and the work of practitioners who utilize them. Processes covered include mediation, arbitration, facilitation, case evaluation, restorative justice, mini-trials, online dispute resolution, and others.

An introduction to drafting, analyzing, and revising contracts. You cannot take this course if you are currently taking or have taken Legal Drafting for Transactional Practice. Students who have taken JURI 5456, Contract Drafting for Startups and New Ventures, are not eligible to take this class.

This course will provide an introduction to and overview of the litigation process leading up to trial, with an emphasis on the written work product that attorneys must generate during the course of litigation, including pleadings, discovery, and selected procedural and substantive motions.

An overview of drafting non-litigation documents. Develops the skills required to draft statutes, wills, and contracts. The course also focuses on gathering information to provide a factual basis for the preparation of such documents and drafting such documents within the existing legal framework. As a prerequisite, J.D. students must have completed the first-year legal writing curriculum (JURI 4071 & 4081), LL.M. students must have completed LLM Legal Writing and Research (JURI 7009), and MSL students must have completed Legal Writing and Analysis for MSL Students (JURI 6505).

An overview of drafting non-litigation documents. Develops the skills required to draft statutes, wills, and contracts. The course also focuses on gathering information to provide a factual basis for the preparation of such documents and drafting such documents within the existing legal framework. As a prerequisite, J.D. students must have completed the first-year legal writing curriculum (JURI 4071 & 4081), LL.M. students must have completed LLM Legal Writing and Research (JURI 7009), and MSL students must have completed Legal Writing and Analysis for MSL Students (JURI 6505).

Our goal is to integrate wide-ranging economic methodologies, rooted in incentives-based reasoning, with a vast array of legal subjects. Coverage includes mainstays of the the first-year law school curriculum (e.g., tort theory) along with institutions and doctrines comprising the core foundation of advanced legal study (e.g., complex litigation, or administrative law). Economic concepts include basic neoclassical economics, interest group theory, social choice, and game theory. We will synthesize these methodologies with modern and classic case law, other legal materials, and policy discussions inspired by current events. The hope is that your journey through the materials will help make you a more mindful and effective socio-legal policy designer and advocate.

This course covers numerous legal and policy questions related to the American educational system. Relevant sources of law include the U.S. Constitution and state and federal statutes and administrative materials. Topics include school funding, school choice, student and teacher speech rights, policy debates, and others. The course will be conducted with an emphasis on developing practical lawyering skills.

Aspects of federal and state elderly programs and problems; special risk populations; significance of older population growth; representation of elderly clients; guardianship; lifetime estate management; testamentary estate disposition; living wills and "right to die" debate; health and long-term care; housing, transportation and employment policies; public assistance.

Examination of the law regulating our political process, and consideration of how those regulatory choices shape substantive policy outcomes. The course covers campaign finance regulation, redistricting, voting rights, and the regulation of political party primaries

This seminar will examine current issues in election law, through the prism of active legal disputes. Topics studied will include: claims that individuals involved in the events of January 6th are disqualified from holding public office under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment; efforts to shield information about legislative gerrymandering using claims of attorney-client privilege; assertions by election officials that they have a First Amendment right to block constituents from accessing their social media pages; recent challenges to the creation of "majority-minority districts" under the Voting Rights Act; and efforts to change or eliminate the Electoral College. Weekly reading assignments will include background material, litigant briefs, and court opinions. Active participation in weekly class discussions is required. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class participation and a final take-home project. The final project will require students to write a judicial opinion addressing one of the issues studied in class. Students wishing to write a longer paper in order to use the course to meet the Capstone writing requirement should contact the professor for additional information.

E-Discovery has taken over the discovery process in civil litigation as most information created today is in electronic form. Every medium to large litigation matter in the country involves some e-discovery issue and therefore understanding e-discovery is critical whether you want to be a plaintiff or defense attorney or in house counsel. This course will provide an understanding of the legal and practical aspects of e-discovery. It will cover all stages of the e-discovery process from when the duty to preserve electronically stored information (ESI) is triggered and a producing party must take reasonable steps to preserve ESI, to collection of ESI in response to requests for production, to review and production of relevant ESI to the opponent. The course will also focus on spoliation and proportionality and how producing parties struggle to balance complying with their preservation obligations with keeping costs down. Additionally, the course will cover how lawyers prepare for and handle Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 26(f) (and state equivalents) conferences and best practices for negotiating ESI protocols involving search terms, predictive coding and other e-discovery technology.

This course will consider emerging issues in trusts, estates, and wealth preservation. Topics will include the legal and social science aspects of innovative death technologies, planning for digital assets, the role of trusts and retirement planning in asset protection, and creative estate planning strategies. The course will also briefly consider some of the legal rules that apply to persons of significant wealth, whose estate plans are designed to protect assets and accomplish tax efficient intergenerational transfers of property. Students will have two short essays to complete, and reading assignments will be front-loaded to allow students to read materials before the class begins and to render the week’s work more manageable.  Course Learning Objectives The successful student should be able to: Synthesize competing practical, ethical, and policy issues that are raised by emerging issues in trusts and estates; Articulate and express well-informed opinions about potential legal impacts of innovation; Demonstrate skills in legal analysis, reasoning, problem solving; and written and oral communication; Listen actively and engage with speakers and other students to share viewpoints and identify weaknesses in other’s arguments.