Second and Third Year Courses

This course is designed for students who want to have the broadest possible clinical experience. Each student is admitted to practice in Maine courts as a “student attorney,” and will maintain an active case load of four to eight cases, which may include general civil, family, probate, appellate, or criminal cases. The course is practice- and skill-oriented, covering client counseling, ethics, investigation, pre-trial practice, negotiation, document drafting, trial experience, and appeals. You will learn how to be a lawyer, and how to interact with other lawyers, the courts and clients. Students will work with the close supervision and mentoring of a faculty supervisor. Along with regular work on cases, students also participate in a weekly one-hour seminar to discuss ongoing cases, ethical issues, lawyering skills, and other topics.

The Mediation Practicum provides students with the opportunity to learn and practice mediation skills. Mediation is an important form of dispute resolution in Maine and many other jurisdictions both in legal and non-legal disputes. In the Mediation Practicum, students learn basic skills of mediating and go to the courthouse to mediate Small Claims cases in Maine District Court (with supervision). In class meetings, students also analyze their mediation experiences and discuss best practices and ethical challenges for mediators.

The Refugee and Human Rights Clinic provides an exciting opportunity for students to advocate on behalf of low-income immigrants in a broad range of cases and projects. Clients include, for example, asylum applicants who have fled human rights abuses in their home countries and are seeking refuge in the United States, immigrant survivors of domestic violence, immigrant victims of certain crimes, and abandoned or abused children seeking legal status in the United States. Under faculty supervision, student attorneys not only develop their substantive knowledge of immigration law and human rights laws and norms but they also build core legal skills relevant to the general practice of law. Students’ clinical work includes interviewing clients and witnesses and preparing their testimony, conducting factual and legal investigation and marshaling of evidence, analyzing and presenting human rights documentation, developing case strategies, writing legal briefs, appearing in administrative hearings, and participating in human rights advocacy projects. Along with regular work with the faculty supervisor on the cases, students also participate in a weekly one-hour seminar to discuss ongoing cases, ethical issues, lawyering skills, and substantive and practical aspects of immigration law.

This course will examine selected legal topics not addressed – or addressed only at an introductory level – in Business Associations regarding the formation, organization, operation, and capitalization of the principal forms of business associations used today, including partnerships, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, and for-profit business corporations. The content of the course may vary from year to year depending on the instructor and the matters previously covered in Business Associations. However, topics will likely include an examination of customary organizational, and related operational documents for the various forms of business enterprises; issues arising in connection with the issuance of stock, and other ownership interests, dividends and distributions; an enterprise’s redemption or repurchase of its shares or other ownership interests; valuation of a corporate or other business enterprise; the rights and remedies of preferred shareholders, bond holders and others who hold debt (convertible or other senior securities); mergers, acquisitions and other fundamental transactions; the securities regulation process and the exemptions therefrom; and the rights and liabilities of purchasers and sellers of securities.

This course examines the control of private economic power through government enforcement and private damage suits under the Sherman and Clayton Acts. The topics considered include legal and economic concepts of monopoly power and monopolization; collaboration among competitors to restrain trade by fixing prices, allocating markets or customers, or by other conduct with the same effects; vertical relationships among firms at different levels of production that operate to restrain trade; and horizontal, vertical and conglomerate mergers.

This course reviews principles of agency and the essentials of partnership, limited partnership, and the limited liability company. The primary focus of the course is the legal framework for the governance of the modern corporation. Topics considered include choice of organization, distribution of powers, fiduciary duties, questions of corporate governance, the special problems of closely held corporations, the regulation of securities transactions, mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers.

This course examines corporate and other organizational governance, ethics, sustainability, and social responsibility – essentially how institutions organize and operate for the long-term benefit of a broad range of stakeholders and manage their many diverse interests. The content draws on learning from legal and regulatory issues and pressures faced by business corporations, and also focusing on related issues for nonprofit organizations and public and quasi-public agencies. We will discuss accepted and evolving best practices in governance as well as emerging corporate social responsibility trends, and analyze highly publicized organization failures and misdeeds through the lens of governance and ethics; e.g., “where was the board and management, what were they thinking, and how could they have let this happen?”

Topics of study include an overview of corporate and organizational governance (definition, history, rationale and importance, board/management duties and functions, law and regulation, conflicts and tensions); identifying rights and responsibilities of stakeholders and key shareholder issues (shareholder activism, impact investing, conflicts of authority with boards and managers); legal and market forces driving organizations toward greater professed social responsibility and sustainability imperatives; ethics in businesses and other organizations; governance and ethics lessons from the great recession; and gatekeepers, including lawyer as business conscience. Students will have the opportunity to interact with CEOs and other executives, board members, general counsel, and nonprofit government leaders who will participate in class discussions from time to time. 

This course provides an introduction to the law of employee benefits. We will examine federal regulation of employer-sponsored benefit plans with respect to retirement and health care, and the underlying public policy issues. From time to time, we will discuss related topics such as profit-sharing plans, cafeteria plans, family and medical leave, executive compensation, workers’ compensation law, and collective bargaining. This inquiry necessarily implicates reference to selected provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code. Class discussion will be supplemented with selected problem sets and simulations in class. In the context of an employee stock ownership (ESOP) transaction and other workplace settings, we will explore ERISA “qualified plan” operation and administration, employer obligations and fiduciary duties, and rights and responsibilities of employees. In addition to participation in classroom discussions, students will be required to produce several short writing projects during the semester, with the option to expand one assignment into a full-length term paper to satisfy the upper level writing requirement and earn a third credit.

Providers of health care operate within a complex set of federal laws and regulations governing their delivery of care and relationships with other providers. This course will explore the practical application of some of the major federal laws affecting health care providers, including fraud and abuse laws, legal obligations to provide care, and constraints on private health insurers. It will also seek to place these laws in a historical context that considers the perceived problems they seek to address, their implications (foreseen or otherwise) for providers and payors, and how they have evolved over time, up through and including the Affordable Care Act.

This course will focus on several areas. First, it will explore the federal regulation of products covered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) including food, drugs, and medical devices. Second, it will review the state, local, federal, and common law regulation of food, stressing both historical evolution and cutting edge policy issues such as GMOs, ‘fair trade’ regulations, and legal issues connected with the locavore movement (such as conflicts between local and state regulations).

Information privacy is one of today’s critical legal subjects. The rapid pace of technology development has raised far-reaching questions about the future of privacy. The role of law is central to answering many of these questions. In the past few decades, many new laws have been passed, hundreds of cases have been decided, and fascinating new issues have arisen. This class is designed to provide you with an introduction to the study of information privacy law and to equip you with the broad issue-spotting and other practical skills needed to navigate the complex array of legal, business, and public policy issues in this area. Students in this class will be eligible to take the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) exam following completion of the course.

This course focuses on the essential role of insurance as an institution in the United States. Substantively, the course focuses on insurance contract interpretation, regulation, and various types of insurance including liability, health, life, and disability insurance. The course will deal with both theoretical issues involving the law and policy of insurance and with practical issues such as how to read insurance contracts. The role of insurance in litigation will receive particular emphasis.

This class examines an attorney’s role in internal and regulatory investigations which take place when an institution has engaged in, or is suspected of engaging in, wrongdoing or misconduct. In these investigations, attorneys must make a number of strategic decisions about how to conduct the investigation, how to fix any identified gaps in internal controls, whether individual employees require discipline, whether to draft a report of any findings and, ultimately, whether to cooperate with regulators. The execution of the internal investigation requires attorneys to have a variety of skills, including selecting and interviewing witnesses; gathering, reviewing and evaluating evidence; drafting reports and memoranda. Regulatory investigations also require lawyers to prepare witnesses for testimony and negotiate document requests and settlements with regulators. Using investigative reports, Department of Justice and SEC memoranda, and case law, this course is intended to develop those skills and explore the many difficult decisions attorneys must make in the course of these investigations, including conflicts with witnesses; whether and how to cooperate with regulators; attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine waiver issues; the potential collateral consequences to the institution’s business and reputation; and the collateral consequences of employee discipline, civil litigation and regulatory investigations.

This seminar will cover a variety of issues related to the protection of intellectual property on a worldwide basis. Topics to be covered include (1) the extraterritorial protection of intellectual property rights, including the concept of globalization; (2) international mechanisms for the acquisition of intellectual property rights; (3) international enforcement of intellectual property rights by rights holders, including parallel imports and gray market goods; (4) disputes between states; and (5) the future of international intellectual property law and policy, in particular issues related to domain names and Internet websites.

This course provides a broad survey of the numerous issues arising from the rapid growth of the Internet and other online communications.  We will explore whether the application of existing legal rules to new technologies is appropriate or if completely novel approaches are necessary when dealing with problems that arise in cyberspace.  Topics to be examined include jurisdiction, the domain name system, regulation of online service providers and digital content creators, freedom of speech as well as privacy.

This course explores nonprofit corporations and related organizational forms of nonprofit enterprise. We examine state corporate law and federal tax law affecting the nonprofit sector, with attention to formation and dissolution, operation and governance, tax exemption, political and commercial activity, and regulatory constraints. We also compare nonprofit corporations with government, for-profit, and limited equity entities and identify public policy arguments for tax exemption and other differential treatment of nonprofit organizations. Class discussion is supplemented with selected problem sets and simulations in class, and students are required to produce several short writing projects during the semester.

This course examines the major issues of the substantive patent law of the United States. Topics include patentable subject matter, utility, novelty, statutory bars, priority of invention, non-obviousness, scope and content of the prior art, disclosure and enablement, reissue and reexamination, infringement, misuse, remedies, and the relationship between trade secret and patent law. The process for obtaining a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will not be covered in depth, but there will be an introduction to this process.

Issues of risk management and compliance are attracting increasing focus and attention throughout society and legal practice.  Government regulation and regulatory oversight, industry-based codes of ethics, and standards of social responsibility and conduct all have been proliferating in recent years.  These developments raise many issues for lawyers.  This course will explore the law and practice relevant to these issues, principally from a transactional lawyer’s perspective.  After a general introduction to risk and risk management, we will address a number of specific topics such as the reputational, operational and enterprise implications of risk, the transactional lawyer’s role in helping clients develop and manage appropriate and effective risk management and compliance programs, the tools available to the transactional lawyer to identify and help manage risks in the client’s transactions and business operations, and the transactional lawyer as “whistle blower” or “gate keeper.”  Finally, we will examine the transactional lawyer’s own management of the risks she or he encounters in client representation (including the “bad actor” client, conflicts of interest, engagement letters and advance waivers, theories of attorney liability, transactional legal opinions, audit letter responses, and dealing with wayward partners and associates).  We will use actual case studies to supplement our discussions.

This course examines the system of secured transactions as governed by Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Students are asked to analyze issues that arise in secured and unsecured financing transactions from both the perspective of the debtor and the creditor. Students will have multiple opportunities to analyze legal problems and draft legal memorandum and letters to clients outlining their analysis. The course also examines the effectiveness of security interests in bankruptcy.

A study of the taxation of corporations (including S corporations) and their shareholders, with principal emphasis on the tax consequences of forming, operating, terminating, and selling an interest in a corporation, as well as some exploration of issues arising when one corporation acquires another corporation.

This course explores the tax consequences of creating, acquiring, exploiting, and transferring various intellectual property (IP) assets (including patents, trade secrets, know how, copyrights, trademarks, and computer software) in both domestic and international transactions. The course also explores popular tax-planning strategies used in connection with IP (e.g., the use of domestic and foreign IP holding subsidiaries) and raises interesting tax policy questions. Valuation of IP, the use of IP by non-profit organizations, and special business and estate planning considerations involving IP are also addressed.

This course will introduce students to the lawyer’s role in transactional practice and provide practical experience in the dynamics of a corporate “deal.”  Students will examine a hypothetical, Maine-based transaction that includes a business acquisition component, a financing component, and an equity component.  Students will “represent” the various parties to the transaction and work through the required tasks and challenges to bring the transaction to fruition, resulting with a “closing” at the end of the course.  Deliverables will include negotiated “deal documents” and other related closing items.  The course will meet twice per week in 1-1/2 hour sessions. Focus of the sessions will alternate between an examination of the substantive issues and their practical application in a “deal” context.

Animal Law is a rapidly developing area of law and one which demonstrates the challenges of regulating and mediating the complex and sometimes mystifying relationship between humans and nonhuman animals. Tasked with questions such as whether depictions of animal cruelty are protected by free speech; how to regulate massive factory farms; why the Animal Welfare Act exempts so many laboratory animals used in experiments; whether it is proper to bait black bears with buckets of human treats; how to deal with wild horses or your neighbor’s bees; or whether dogs and cats may inherit millions of dollars, Animal Law attempts to balance interests and find workable solutions to problems that range from neighbor disputes and veterinary care to some of the most critical problems facing our species, such as stewardship of our planet, food insecurity, and the moral question of who can be a rights-holder. This course will cover selected topics in the field, including recent thinking about animal intelligence, using animals for research, food, and entertainment, animal activism, and animals as companions.

This course will focus on the investigative phase of criminal proceedings. We will examine the law that governs police conduct, including search and seizure, arrest, and interrogation of suspects. The class will emphasize the interplay between abstract constitutional principles as interpreted by the courts and law enforcement on the street.

This course will explore professional issues involved in representing elderly clients as well as key statutes and regulations of particular importance to seniors. Topics of study will include, among other things, ethical issues in representing elders; age discrimination; income maintenance and the social security system; access to health care and the role of Medicare and Medicaid; senior housing (including nursing home and assisted living issues); advance planning and guardianship; and elder abuse and neglect. Particular attention will be paid to the impact that cognitive and physical impairments can have on legal rights and the ability to exercise those rights.

The emphasis of this seminar will be on the body of federal law that defines the relationship between Native Americans and the federal and state governments.

The course examines the goals of the U.S. health care system, which is designed to provide high-quality, affordable, and accessible health care. We will explore the regulation of health care professionals and institutions. The course will also discuss the contract, tort, and administrative law issues that come up in cases of informed consent, liability, malpractice, and end-of-life care. The course will also examine legal efforts to make health care affordable and accessible. We will study the regulation of both public and private insurance systems and use basic insurance principles to explore this area of law. Health law is complex for many reasons, including because it involves the interactions of state and federal statutes (and regulations) with longstanding principles of contract and tort law. The intersections between state and federal statutes and policies are also challenging. The 2010 Affordable Care Act will of course be a focus of the course.

This is a research seminar in international human rights law. It covers the fundamentals of the international human rights system, including standards and drafting, human rights treaties, fact-finding and reporting, non-state actors, complaint procedures, charter-based procedures, women’s human rights, refugee and asylum law, humanitarian intervention, regional human rights systems, domestic remedies, and special problems in human rights such as cultural relativism, capacity building and accountability.

Juvenile Law is a non-traditional course blending lecture and discussion with a significant skills component. This course will examine the procedural and substantive parameters on juvenile courts and the court’s authority to intervene in children’s lives. We will analyze issues in juvenile justice in the broader context of youth policy, developmental psychology, and the legal status of children.

Although barely touched upon in many law school courses, states and local governments play an important role in our everyday lives. They enjoy substantial law-making power; are responsible for financing and providing many public goods and services; and are the location of a great deal of political participation. This course will examine the theory behind and sources of local government power as well as the advantages and disadvantages of decentralized decision-making. Specific topics include: voting rights, local government formation and boundary change, state-local relations and local home rule, interlocal conflicts, school finance reform, and regional governance.

A growing number of lawyers market themselves as appellate specialists. This course aims to interest students in the appellate specialty; provide an overview of the different types of appeals and appellate rules of procedure; and provide a forum to practice written and oral appellate advocacy.

Students will ghost write at least two appellate pleadings in pending cases, litigated contemporaneously with the course offering in state and/or federal court. The course also will simulate client management skills and students will have the opportunity to practice oral arguments. In the process, students will learn a variety of fungible skills, e.g. how to evaluate strategic litigation choices and how to communicate those choices to the client; how to work with “good” and “bad” facts; how to best frame the legal questions presented by the case; and how to appropriately confront the ethical issues that routinely confront courtroom lawyers.

At the conclusion of the course, students should feel comfortable independently prosecuting a direct appeal in state or federal court. Students should also pass any question about the Maine Rules of Appellate Procedure on the Maine Bar Exam.

At the heart of the criminal process is discretionary decision-making by prosecutors and defense counsel. The prosecutor has vast, unreviewable power over the charging decision. But with that power comes the responsibility to evaluate the truthfulness of potential testimony by cooperating witnesses, police officers, law enforcement experts, and alleged victims. Law by agreement of the prosecutor and defense counsel is the “law” that settles more than 90 percent of criminal cases, and the most important advocacy of defense counsel is often directed to the prosecutor. Before plea bargaining, the lawyers must evaluate everything that has gone before, such as the results of formal and informal discovery, the amount of time served pending trial, and the likelihood of conviction and of a particular sentence. Mutual trust between prosecutors and defense counsel, or its lack, significantly influences the functioning of the criminal process. Having identified the powers of prosecutors and defense counsel, the course attempts an extended inquiry onto how these powers should be exercised.

This course provides: (1) an orientation to the key rules, concepts, and controversies concerning the presentation and admission of evidence in criminal and civil trials; and (2) an introduction to the specific skills used by attorneys in litigation as proponents and opponents of evidence. Specifically, we will examine: the overall structure of trials; how evidentiary disputes are raised and resolved; the examination and impeachment of witnesses; relevance; character evidence; hearsay; and opinion testimony. The goal is to gain a solid grounding in the key rules, concepts, and controversies to enable you to use the rules strategically and effectively in your own cases (whether in Trial Practice, a clinical or externship course, or your practice), to critically evaluate the evidence rules and their application, and to understand how the rules operate in conjunction with substantive law (i.e. criminal law, tort law, etc.). Accordingly, we will study not only the rules’ explicit requirements and prohibitions but also the policy goals and assumptions underlying the rules. The Federal Rules of Evidence will be our primary focus for the course; however, you are also responsible for learning some important distinctions between the Federal and Maine Rules of Evidence.

Much of the world’s commerce moves by water. The admiralty law intersects with domestic civil law at many points, including defining the rights of seamen, passengers, certain landside workers, ship responsibilities, cargo rights, and insurance. The same admiralty framework extends to the fishing industry and pleasure vessels in many instances. This course surveys general principles of admiralty and maritime law in its many applications.

Animal Law is a rapidly developing area of law and one which demonstrates the challenges of regulating and mediating the complex and sometimes mystifying relationship between humans and nonhuman animals. Tasked with questions such as whether depictions of animal cruelty are protected by free speech; how to regulate massive factory farms; why the Animal Welfare Act exempts so many laboratory animals used in experiments; whether it is proper to bait black bears with buckets of human treats; how to deal with wild horses or your neighbor’s bees; or whether dogs and cats may inherit millions of dollars, Animal Law attempts to balance interests and find workable solutions to problems that range from neighbor disputes and veterinary care to some of the most critical problems facing our species, such as stewardship of our planet, food insecurity, and the moral question of who can be a rights-holder. This course will cover selected topics in the field, including recent thinking about animal intelligence, using animals for research, food, and entertainment, animal activism, and animals as companions.

This course examines the social and environmental obligations, if any, imposed on corporations beyond pure profit maximization.  Milton Friedman famously wrote that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits,” and, indeed, a course in the law of business associations likely reinforces the commitment to profit-maximization as a legal obligation as well.  However, as evidenced by the development of new corporate forms (such as the “benefit corporation”) and the policies of Fortune 500 companies, the recent trend has been towards a recognition a broader corporate purpose in law and practice.

This course will examine corporate social responsibility, with a particular focus on sustainability and the environment.  The course begins with the question of whether such a responsibility exists, drawing on potential legal, ethical, and societal sources.  We will then turn to how corporations can meet their environmental obligations, or fail to, under existing law.  Looking at what has already been done by some of the “best” actors, we will ultimately aim to determine the proper role for corporate governance in the pursuit of a healthier climate system and planet as a whole.

Illicit extraction of natural resources is financing armed conflicts. The opening of the Arctic passage because of climate change has created new geopolitical conflicts. The legal extraction and transportation of oil and natural gas is undermining the security of local residents. And climate-induced migration and congested refugee camps represent a significant new source of domestic insecurity and cross-border tension. Many of the proposed solutions to these tensions between ecosystem resilience, economic control, and perceived security concerns are legal agreements. A complementary response is to redefine ‘environmental security’. This course will examine a series of environmental security crises and their proposed solutions to understand better the social, ecological, political, and security processes involved. The six week short course will open with a methodological overview of “security concerns,” “economic drivers,” non-linearity of ecosystems, and international environmental legal frameworks. The core of the course will be three classroom-based case studies and a student self-selected case study. The last week of course will look at a redefinition of ecological security. Students will also be expected to prepare short commentaries on the prime legal instruments cited in the classroom-based case studies.

The course will introduce students to the broad and deep field of Environmental Law. Environmental Law is practiced at the local, statewide, national, and (increasingly) international level. It contains elements of energy law, natural resources law, and land use law. It also crosses disciplinary lines with science and engineering, business and finance, and public policy. The course will introduce students to five of the major federal environmental statutes and regulations and the case law that interprets them. The five statutes are the Clean Air Act; the Clean Water Act; the National Environmental Policy Act; the Endangered Species Act; and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (a/k/a as the Superfund Law). In addition, we will briefly introduce students to several other of the three dozen or more extensive federal statutes addressing environmental issues.

Land is an increasingly scarce and valuable resource; Land Use Law increasingly touches upon many substantive practice areas and course topics across the law school curriculum.  This is a professional skills and confidence building course dealing with issues that almost every attorney likely will confront sometime, in Maine or elsewhere. As a “practicum,” students will develop necessary practical lawyering skills by engaging in a number of advocacy exercises and in a number of different roles – such as for a development, against it, or deciding whether or approve or reject it. Students will work with specific project facts, and will address federal, Maine and local land use issues as well as professional ethics issues. There will be no mid-term or final examination.

This course surveys the laws governing the ownership, conservation, exploitation, and preservation of renewable and non-renewable natural resources, including wildlife, fisheries, wilderness, parks, water, forests, and energy. It examines the constitutional, historical, political, and economic underpinnings of natural resources law and the means by which public policies are formulated, implemented, challenged, and revised.

This course is concerned with the acquisition, financing, development, operation, and disposition of real estate. The course provides an introduction to the essential material that a lawyer needs for participation in sophisticated real estate practice, including relevant doctrines and principles of the law of contracts, property, conveyance, mortgages, and leases. Attention is also devoted to financing techniques for the acquisition and development of real estate.

This course will explore professional issues involved in representing elderly clients as well as key statutes and regulations of particular importance to seniors. Topics of study will include, among other things, ethical issues in representing elders; age discrimination; income maintenance and the social security system; access to health care and the role of Medicare and Medicaid; senior housing (including nursing home and assisted living issues); advance planning and guardianship; and elder abuse and neglect. Particular attention will be paid to the impact that cognitive and physical impairments can have on legal rights and the ability to exercise those rights.

This course focuses upon basic legal issues relating to marriage, family, and the termination of marriage. One segment of the course emphasizes jurisprudential and constitutional issues underpinning the institutions of marriage and family. A second segment emphasizes major doctrinal developments, including the laws of marital property, support, and child custody.

Juvenile Law is a non-traditional course blending lecture and discussion with a significant skills component. This course will examine the procedural and substantive parameters on juvenile courts and the court’s authority to intervene in children’s lives. We will analyze issues in juvenile justice in the broader context of youth policy, developmental psychology, and the legal status of children.

Recently, there has been an explosion of legal battles involving efforts to undo old regulations and laws, as well as over how statutes and regulations should be interpreted. Moreover, today the vast majority of attorneys who litigate are doing so not before judges or juries, but before regulatory bodies or non-judicial officers without the Rules of Evidence or Civil Procedure, and that have special standards for issues like standing and finality.  The American Bar Association estimates that 65 to 70 percent of the practice of adjudication actually occurs in an administrative setting, rather than a courtroom.

This course will first review the fundamental principles of and tools for interpretation of statutes and regulations. We then examine work that federal and state agencies do, the procedures they utilize, and the ways in which the political judicial branches seek to control administrative actions.  Students will undertake practical exercises on relevant issues throughout the semester to best develop their oral and written advocacy skills, and to better learn and remember the legislative and regulatory doctrines. Maine Law alums who practice in a variety of regulated areas of law will share their insights with students. The goal is to better enable students to address issues in their other courses, as well as in any jobs they pursue.

This course will cover the fundamental principles of constitutional, federal and state law governing public education in the United States. Topics will include allocation of authority for educational decision-making, school governance, student and parent rights, and teacher employment. The course will address both the development of Supreme Court jurisprudence under the Constitution (e.g., free speech, religion, due process, equal protection) and the state law framework for education, with an emphasis on Maine state law where it illustrates the role of states in public education.

Providers of health care operate within a complex set of federal laws and regulations governing their delivery of care and relationships with other providers. This course will explore the practical application of some of the major federal laws affecting health care providers, including fraud and abuse laws, legal obligations to provide care, and constraints on private health insurers. It will also seek to place these laws in a historical context that considers the perceived problems they seek to address, their implications (foreseen or otherwise) for providers and payors, and how they have evolved over time, up through and including the Affordable Care Act.

This class examines an attorney’s role in internal and regulatory investigations which take place when an institution has engaged in, or is suspected of engaging in, wrongdoing or misconduct. In these investigations, attorneys must make a number of strategic decisions about how to conduct the investigation, how to fix any identified gaps in internal controls, whether individual employees require discipline, whether to draft a report of any findings and, ultimately, whether to cooperate with regulators. The execution of the internal investigation requires attorneys to have a variety of skills, including selecting and interviewing witnesses; gathering, reviewing and evaluating evidence; drafting reports and memoranda. Regulatory investigations also require lawyers to prepare witnesses for testimony and negotiate document requests and settlements with regulators. Using investigative reports, Department of Justice and SEC memoranda, and case law, this course is intended to develop those skills and explore the many difficult decisions attorneys must make in the course of these investigations, including conflicts with witnesses; whether and how to cooperate with regulators; attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine waiver issues; the potential collateral consequences to the institution’s business and reputation; and the collateral consequences of employee discipline, civil litigation and regulatory investigations.

Land is an increasingly scarce and valuable resource; Land Use Law increasingly touches upon many substantive practice areas and course topics across the law school curriculum.  This is a professional skills and confidence building course dealing with issues that almost every attorney likely will confront sometime, in Maine or elsewhere. As a “practicum,” students will develop necessary practical lawyering skills by engaging in a number of advocacy exercises and in a number of different roles – such as for a development, against it, or deciding whether or approve or reject it. Students will work with specific project facts, and will address federal, Maine and local land use issues as well as professional ethics issues. There will be no mid-term or final examination.

The American military is widely regarded as the most impressive in the world.  It performs missions that have worldwide implications both in times of peace and in times of war.  The United States Constitution contains 18 provisions specifically centered on the armed forces.  They provide the basis for the wide number of domestic missions of the armed forces.

Military Law will examine the overall governance structure of the military and the roles of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in that governance.  Among the topics are entry into the military by commissioning, enlistment, or conscription and departure from the military by retirement, involuntary termination, end of service agreement.  A considerable portion of the course will examine the distinctive military criminal justice system (the court-martial process).  In addition to its specific application to the military, study of the court-martial system provides an excellent comparative basis for studying American criminal justice systems.

Issues of risk management and compliance are attracting increasing focus and attention throughout society and legal practice.  Government regulation and regulatory oversight, industry-based codes of ethics, and standards of social responsibility and conduct all have been proliferating in recent years.  These developments raise many issues for lawyers.  This course will explore the law and practice relevant to these issues, principally from a transactional lawyer’s perspective.  After a general introduction to risk and risk management, we will address a number of specific topics such as the reputational, operational and enterprise implications of risk, the transactional lawyer’s role in helping clients develop and manage appropriate and effective risk management and compliance programs, the tools available to the transactional lawyer to identify and help manage risks in the client’s transactions and business operations, and the transactional lawyer as “whistle blower” or “gate keeper.”  Finally, we will examine the transactional lawyer’s own management of the risks she or he encounters in client representation (including the “bad actor” client, conflicts of interest, engagement letters and advance waivers, theories of attorney liability, transactional legal opinions, audit letter responses, and dealing with wayward partners and associates).  We will use actual case studies to supplement our discussions.

The course will focus on two sets of issues: First, a range of current medical, legal, ethical issues will be examined – right to die, right to treatment, organ transplant, assisted reproduction (IVF), rights of handicapped individuals, parental control, and the continuing debate surrounding abortion and contraception. Second, we will examine a range of physician and hospital malpractice issues including discussion of issues arising in the context of medical research.

Providers of health care operate within a complex set of federal laws and regulations governing their delivery of care and relationships with other providers. This course will explore the practical application of some of the major federal laws affecting health care providers, including fraud and abuse laws, legal obligations to provide care, and constraints on private health insurers. It will also seek to place these laws in a historical context that considers the perceived problems they seek to address, their implications (foreseen or otherwise) for providers and payors, and how they have evolved over time, up through and including the Affordable Care Act.

The course examines the goals of the U.S. health care system, which is designed to provide high-quality, affordable, and accessible health care. We will explore the regulation of health care professionals and institutions. The course will also discuss the contract, tort, and administrative law issues that come up in cases of informed consent, liability, malpractice, and end-of-life care. The course will also examine legal efforts to make health care affordable and accessible. We will study the regulation of both public and private insurance systems and use basic insurance principles to explore this area of law. Health law is complex for many reasons, including because it involves the interactions of state and federal statutes (and regulations) with longstanding principles of contract and tort law. The intersections between state and federal statutes and policies are also challenging. The 2010 Affordable Care Act will of course be a focus of the course.

As its name would suggest, comparative law is not so much the study of any particular body of law as it is a study of what role the law plays in different cultures and societies and how culture, history, and economics in turn shape the law. This course will therefore take a detailed look at law as it is practiced in Europe, Asia, South America, the Middle East, and elsewhere, with an emphasis on comparing and contrasting the civil-law and common-law traditions. Topics will include differences in legal education, the role of the legal profession, the judicial system, and societal attitudes toward these institutions. The course will also take a look at globalization and efforts at harmonization, as well movements toward “counter-harmonization” and areas of law that resist harmonization. The course will be graded primarily on class participation and a final written paper of law review length.

The emphasis of this seminar will be on the body of federal law that defines the relationship between Native Americans and the federal and state governments.

This course surveys the legal, historical, and political considerations that shape U.S. immigration law. The course will review the constitutional basis for regulating immigration into the United States, and, to some extent, the constitutional rights of non-citizens in the country; the contours of the immigration bureaucracy, including the roles played by various federal agencies in immigration decisions; the admission of non-immigrants (i.e., temporary visitors) and immigrants into the U.S.; the deportation and exclusion of non-immigrants and immigrants; refugee and asylum law; administrative and judicial review; citizenship and naturalization; undocumented migration; and comprehensive immigration reform.

This is a research seminar in international human rights law. It covers the fundamentals of the international human rights system, including standards and drafting, human rights treaties, fact-finding and reporting, non-state actors, complaint procedures, charter-based procedures, women’s human rights, refugee and asylum law, humanitarian intervention, regional human rights systems, domestic remedies, and special problems in human rights such as cultural relativism, capacity building and accountability.

This is a foundation course in public international law that is primarily, though not exclusively, concerned with legal relations among states and public entities in the global system. The course explores the dynamics by which international law is made and applied by appraising trends and outcomes in international decision bearing on problems of world public order. The goal is to equip students to understand why past decisions were made, to devise methods for predicting future decisions, to develop methods for inventing decision alternatives both at the structural or constitutive level, and to identify the conceptions and skills necessary for influencing future decisions in the range of arenas in which international law is made and applied: parliamentary, diplomatic, judicial, and arbitral in national and international settings. Topics covered include: origins of international law, sources of international law, establishment and transformation of states and other actors, state recognition, diplomatic protection, jurisdiction, international courts and tribunals, international organizations, international human rights, resort to and use of force, nation-building, the regulation of international agreements, sovereign immunity, and enforcement of foreign judgments.

This course focuses on three aspects of the law of international trade. First, the basic elements of transnational commercial transactions will be examined. Second, the GATT and various other multinational trade agreements will be considered and discussed. Finally, United States domestic trade legislation will be reviewed and compared to approaches taken by other countries. If time permits, a number of discrete issues in international trade will be considered, including the transfer and protection of technology, the regulation of foreign investment, and the resolution of international commercial disputes.

This course examines the nature of the rights protected under federal copyright law and the types of work that qualify for protection, including literary, artistic, and musical works. This course also covers copyright duration, ownership, formalities, remedies for infringement, and principles of international protection. The Copyright Act of 1976 as amended forms the core statutory material covered by the course.

This course provides a broad survey of the three main branches of intellectual property law, namely trademark, copyright, and patent law.  We will explore the similarities and differences among these varied systems of intellectual property protection, as well as examine the challenges brought about by new technologies.  This course provides a foundation for advanced intellectual property courses but is also appropriate for students who seek only a general understanding of intellectual property law.  A science or technical background is not necessary.

This course provides a broad survey of the numerous issues arising from the rapid growth of the Internet and other online communications.  We will explore whether the application of existing legal rules to new technologies is appropriate or if completely novel approaches are necessary when dealing with problems that arise in cyberspace.  Topics to be examined include jurisdiction, the domain name system, regulation of online service providers and digital content creators, freedom of speech as well as privacy.

This course offers students an introduction to acquiring and protecting trademarks. Students learn how to counsel clients on what may serve as a proper trademark, how to register a mark with the state and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the nature of an infringement lawsuit, and defending trademarks against domain name “cybersquatters” in US courts and through international arbitration systems. This course is designed to give students a practical rather than theoretical view of trademark law and as such frequently incorporates local practitioners in delivering course materials and answering students’ questions.

This course considers alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as an important tool for the resolution of civil actions and family matters as well as disputes outside the judicial arena. ADR processes (including negotiation, mediation, arbitration, early neutral evaluation, and hybrid processes) are examined in a theoretical context and through in-class exercises/simulations.

A growing number of lawyers market themselves as appellate specialists. This course aims to interest students in the appellate specialty; provide an overview of the different types of appeals and appellate rules of procedure; and provide a forum to practice written and oral appellate advocacy.

Students will ghost write at least two appellate pleadings in pending cases, litigated contemporaneously with the course offering in state and/or federal court. The course also will simulate client management skills and students will have the opportunity to practice oral arguments. In the process, students will learn a variety of fungible skills, e.g. how to evaluate strategic litigation choices and how to communicate those choices to the client; how to work with “good” and “bad” facts; how to best frame the legal questions presented by the case; and how to appropriately confront the ethical issues that routinely confront courtroom lawyers.

At the conclusion of the course, students should feel comfortable independently prosecuting a direct appeal in state or federal court. Students should also pass any question about the Maine Rules of Appellate Procedure on the Maine Bar Exam.

This is a skills building course. Increasingly, attorneys who litigate are doing so not before judges or juries, but before regulatory bodies or officers—for example, on issues of planning and zoning, unemployment/social security/workers compensation benefits, environmental permitting, property tax review, and asylum to name just a few. And while this course will sharpen the skills of anyone who wants to do trial work, unlike trial practice the art of advocating for clients in a regulatory arena has differences—oftentimes the adjudicators are laypeople, the rules of evidence do not apply, there may be no discovery, and one must master varying (by agency) procedural rules. This course will begin with a review of the administrative adjudicatory process, with a primary focus upon Maine law, but as a “practicum” will involve the supervised practical application of administrative and environmental law concepts. Students will develop necessary practical lawyering skills by engaging in a variety of written and oral advocacy exercises using a wind power project simulation. You will draft and orally present to classmates a client memo, op-ed, and a recommended decision on the project. Students will also conduct a short direct or cross-examination of expert witnesses, present an opening or closing argument, and address ethical issues.

Expert Evidence will address the role and presentation of expert and scientific evidence in civil and criminal litigation under the Federal and Maine Rules of Evidence. The course will cover the concept of expert testimony in general, basic requirements for the admissibility of such testimony (including qualifications, proper bases of expert opinion, and Daubert and other reliability requirements for the principles and methods used), pretrial disclosure and discovery procedure, ethical considerations, and the presentation of expert opinion testimony at trial. The course will also include discussion of approaches to truth, knowledge, and discovery in both science and law. We will consider these requirements, issues, and questions as they apply to the role in law of expertise from a range of specific fields such as medicine and pathology, forensic science (fingerprinting, chemical analysis, etc.), engineering, psychology and other social science fields, accounting, and others. This is an advanced Evidence course, and it will provide students with not only the opportunity to expand and deepen their understanding of the applicable rules and other legal authority pertaining to expert evidence, but also to develop the specific skills associated with presenting and challenging expert evidence during the discovery and trial process. Students will conduct simulated pretrial and trial examinations of expert witnesses as well as engage in other forms of oral and written advocacy. Grades will be based upon performance of in-class skills exercises and written assignments.

This course focuses on the essential role of insurance as an institution in the United States. Substantively, the course focuses on insurance contract interpretation, regulation, and various types of insurance including liability, health, life, and disability insurance. The course will deal with both theoretical issues involving the law and policy of insurance and with practical issues such as how to read insurance contracts. The role of insurance in litigation will receive particular emphasis.

This course is offered to students who have completed Legal Research and Writing I and II (or the equivalent for transfer students) and who are selected through an open competition at the beginning of each fall semester. During the spring semester, selected students participate in an extramural moot court competition against teams from other law schools by writing an appellate brief and orally arguing both sides of it at the competition. Students may compete during their 2L or 3L year, or both.

The course will expose students to pre-trial practice and procedure through materials and exercises fashioned to familiarize them with civil proceedings’ procedural landscape, including, but not limited to drafting and responding to initial pleading interlocutory, and dispositive motions. In addition, students will learn effective use of available discovery devices and other important aspects of the pre-trial process.

The study of judicial remedies focuses on the legal, equitable and restitutionary relief available for breach of contract, breach of duty in tort, violation of statute, unjust enrichment and other causes of action, as well as on the limits of such relief. The approach of this course combines the theoretical with the practical in exploring the social values that inform remedial principles as well as the nuts and bolts of remedies practice in federal and state court.

Trial Evidence and Advocacy is a 6-credit, integrated course that will both teach students the Federal and Maine Rules of Evidence and how to apply them in practical, experiential exercises based upon simulated adjudicatory proceedings. The combination of subjects will enable students to immediately put into practice the concepts they are learning, and to better remember the rules of evidence and advocacy principles. Because 65-70% of adjudication actually occurs in an administrative setting, rather than a courtroom, and people are ten times more likely to be tried by an agency than by a court, this course will train students to be effective advocates in whatever forum their future clients find themselves. Thus, students will learn the basic skills that are necessary to be an effective advocate whether involved in a jury or non-jury trial, or in an adjudicatory hearing before an agency or board.

Students will learn how to develop both a “theme” and “theory” for their client, and learn to how to make proper opening and closing statements, conduct direct and cross-examinations of witnesses, and how to properly present and object to evidence, including expert testimony. Faculty will utilize simulations, role-playing, demonstrations, and individual evaluation and feedback. At the end of the semester, students will try both a Bench Trial and a Jury Trial, which serve to bring together all the elements of a trial in simulated settings.

This class is designed to help you develop (1) a working knowledge of the FRE and MRE; (2) an ability to quickly and accurately solve evidentiary problems; (3) knowledge and understanding of key cases that discuss and analyze the FRE; (4) an understanding of the theory, purpose, goals, and implications of the FRE and MRE; and (5) the ability to both prepare and present persuasive, focused and compelling oral and written communication of your issues, regardless of whether you are representing the moving party or defendant, and regardless of whether your audience is a trial judge, jury, administrative law judge, or other tribunal.

This course offers the opportunity to develop the basic skills necessary to conduct a trial, including developing a case theory and theme, opening statements, direct and cross-examinations of witnesses, use of exhibits, evidentiary objections, and closing arguments. The study of trial techniques is primarily through use of simulations, role-playing, demonstrations, and individual evaluation and feedback.

This course is designed to prepare law students to conduct effective legal research in any setting; while working on a scholarly article or paper, or working as a judicial clerk, as a practitioner in a firm, government, or solo practice. Students will learn about the development of legal research tools and how to evaluate print and electronic resources for currency, authority, comprehensiveness, and utility. By the end of the course, students should be familiar with the entire universe of legal resources, be confident when using online sources, and be able to conduct professional-level legal research in any field, on any legal topic. The course will be divided into two major segments: a lecture and discussion section and a practical “lab” meeting in the library. During these lab sessions the students will use the resources discussed in the lecture portion of the course to conduct hands-on research using traditional print resources as well as electronic resources. Grades will be based on a combination of class participation, research assignments, and two larger writing assignments: a website review and a pathfinder on a topic of the students’ choosing.

This course provides students with a substantive review of Maine law routinely tested on the essay portion of the Maine Bar Exam. The course will include a focused review of the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure, the Maine Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Maine Rules of Appellate Procedure, the Maine Rules of Evidence, and the Maine Rules of Professional Conduct as well as Maine case law interpreting and clarifying those rules. The goal of the course is to enhance student ability to prepare for the essay portion of the bar exam, as well as for the practice of law in Maine. The course is intended to supplement, not replace, commercial bar preparation courses.

Upper-class students may form a group under the guidance of a professor for the purpose of studying an area of the law that is not the subject of a currently-offered course. Group studies may not be composed of fewer than four or more than fourteen students. Such groups must be approved by the Curriculum Committee at least four weeks prior to the beginning of the semester. The members of the group must conduct weekly meetings and each member must submit an individual paper at the end of the semester.

The Independent Writing course is an independent study course where students, in consultation with a faculty adviser, complete a major research paper. Successful completion of the Independent Writing course satisfies the Upper Level Writing requirement, which is a requirement for graduation.

Open to those selected as third-year legal writing instructors.

The Upper Level Writing course is a one-credit course that allows students to satisfy the Upper Level Writing requirement. Students must register for this in connection with a designated course or seminar. After enrolling in the course or seminar and Upper Level Writing, students will write a major research paper in conjunction with the course or seminar and in consultation with a faculty advisor. Successful completion of the designated course or seminar and one-credit Upper Level Writing satisfies the Upper Level Writing requirement, which is a requirement for graduation.

Economic development takes many forms in a wide range of settings.  This course focuses on the domestic policy and practice of development in disadvantaged urban and rural communities, with attention to enterprise organization, finance transactions, and creative use of the law.  We will work through a series of problems that require application of lawyering skills in simulated private sector transactions and in related public policy challenges.  This work implicates corporate law and alternative enterprise forms, as well as federal tax law such as New Markets Tax Credits, the Low Income Housing Credit, and charitable exemptions and constraints.  Instead of a final exam or term paper, student assessment will be based on engagement with entity and deal structuring, document drafting, negotiations, and policy solutions to problems raised in class.

Federal income taxation of partners and partnerships (and other business entities such as limited liability companies that are treated as partnerships for tax purposes) is governed by a tax regime that is separate and distinct from those that govern the taxation of individuals (Taxation I) and corporations and their shareholders (Taxation II). The course focuses on various aspects of this unique tax regime including the considerations that affect choice of entity and qualification as a partnership, and the tax consequences to the partnership and its partners in connection with the formation, operation and termination of a partnership, the sale of partnership interests and property, distributions from the partnership to its members and allocations of income, losses, deductions and credits.

A study of the taxation of corporations (including S corporations) and their shareholders, with principal emphasis on the tax consequences of forming, operating, terminating, and selling an interest in a corporation, as well as some exploration of issues arising when one corporation acquires another corporation.

This course explores the tax consequences of creating, acquiring, exploiting, and transferring various intellectual property (IP) assets (including patents, trade secrets, know how, copyrights, trademarks, and computer software) in both domestic and international transactions. The course also explores popular tax-planning strategies used in connection with IP (e.g., the use of domestic and foreign IP holding subsidiaries) and raises interesting tax policy questions. Valuation of IP, the use of IP by non-profit organizations, and special business and estate planning considerations involving IP are also addressed.