FALL SEMESTER

Civil Procedure - LAW 613

You probably have some sense of what a lawsuit is, and how it works. Civil procedure deals with how the legal system lets you identify, bring and resolve non-criminal disputes in federal court.  In other words, civil procedure is about the “rules of the road” for preparing, defending, conducting, and concluding a civil lawsuit in federal court.  These rules are determined by the constitution, statutes, formal rules (the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure), and court practices, and they have evolved as the courts and our cases have evolved over time. This course will teach you how to read legal materials and how to apply them to actual factual situations, which are skills you will use in every area of your legal study and practice.  The course teaches a new language – law and procedure.  Recurring themes that you can expect to focus on the rules themselves, fairness, access to justice, legal and practical strategy, and the relationship between state and federal laws and courts.

This course begins by examining the elements generally required for the creation of an enforceable agreement.  It next explores possible barriers to contract enforcement.  The course then examines the methods by which the meaning of a contract is ascertained, as well as the various remedies available in the event a party breaches the agreement.  In connection with these various topics, the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, and the common law will be analyzed, compared, and contrasted.
In this course, the student develops the essential skills of legal research, writing, and analysis by completing research and writing assignments focusing on writing for different audiences. These assignments include a series of structured research exercises, a case brief, two legal memoranda (one written for the court and the other for a law partner), and a client letter.
This course examines civil liability, including intentional torts, negligence, and strict liability. The elements of various torts are studied, together with policy issues, and issues relating to insurance and damages. The course also deals with historical and theoretical developments, such as the rise of comparative fault and insurance, and the development of theories such as law and economics and corrective justice as they relate to tort law.

 

SPRING SEMESTER

Constitutional Law - LAW 620
This course examines issues related to the United States system of constitutional governance. We will cover the scope of federal powers and the structure of government (separation of powers and federalism), as well as the protection of individual rights (focusing on substantive due process and equal protection). A major focus of the course is the role of the judiciary in the American constitutional system. Although our coverage will be necessarily limited, this course will, nevertheless, provide students with the analytical skills needed to examine general questions of Constitutional Law.

The Framers of the Constitution declared that an important purpose in creating the United States was to “establish Justice”. When it comes to criminal law, what does “justice” mean? How is it to be secured? A useful starting point is to understand that criminal justice is a system for allocating discretion among legislators, judges, juries, the police, prosecutors, and defense counsel and regulating the relationships among them. Our goal is usable knowledge; we “know” the criminal law by knowing how these institutional actors use (or should use) their discretion to seek justice.

This course requires the student to integrate and apply the legal research, analysis, and writing skills developed in Legal Research, Analysis, and Communication I, the previous semester.

The course will explore the law regulating the rights of private property. We will consider why we call some resources property, how we allocate those resources, why we regulate an owner’s use of a resource, and the strategies we use to maximize the economic value of resources. We will cover both theory and doctrine addressing ownership, possession and transfer of real and personal property. Aspects of property law that are covered include discovery, creation, capture, the estates system, landlord-tenant law, adverse possession, transfers of land, private and public law systems for regulating land use (including easements, covenants, zoning and eminent domain) and the constitutional protections of property.