Course Catalog

Professor Chaney's section: This course will explore the practical, conceptual and procedural mechanics of civil rights practice through mock litigation of one or more simulated case studies. Students will engage the stages of litigation, including claim and defense development, preparing and answering pleadings, crafting written discovery, conducting effective depositions, and presenting oral argument, while exploring the nuanced issues that arise in civil rights practice, including client management, dealing with client and personal trauma and triggers, establishing noneconomic harm, and collaborative practice.
Professor Steinberg's section: This course examines how civil rights lawyers use federal civil rights litigation to address contemporary social problems. Students will develop and litigate a simulated case based on an actual racial profiling controversy in Ann Arbor. They will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, complaint drafting, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions and negotiations. Students will learn how to overcome the many procedural obstacles to justice posed by 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and explore the ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers when representing clients in civil rights cases. The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving social change when it is a part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.
Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.
The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election. It fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

This course will consider problems relating to the police role in the administration of criminal justice and judicial enforcement of limitations upon police practices. We will focus primarily on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments and will answer the following questions: (1) When can the police stop, search, and/or arrest people? (2) When can the police search cars, homes, and offices and for what? (3) What are the laws surrounding police interrogation and confessions? (4) Who has a right to counsel and when and how is it triggered? (5) How are police line-ups and other identification procedures conducted and what are the constitutional limits on such procedures? (6) What remedy does a defendant have if his/her constitutional criminal procedure rights are violated? When is the evidence excluded and when should it be excluded?

• Type: Upper Class

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

One model of social change entails the strategic use of carefully planned litigation to achieve law and policy reforms. In this seminar we will explore the benefits and drawbacks of the impact litigation model, compare impact litigation to other models of public interest law, and consider its ethical and professional implications. Then, turning to two local case studies involving criminal law reform, we will examine how impact litigation can work in practice. How were these cases selected and developed? What strategic decisions had to made along the way? How were the cases shaped by procedural limitations and extrajudicial considerations? Students will be tasked with either undertaking their own case study or proposing a new case that fits within the impact litigation model.

• Type: Seminar

Professor Chaney's section: This course will explore the practical, conceptual and procedural mechanics of civil rights practice through mock litigation of one or more simulated case studies. Students will engage the stages of litigation, including claim and defense development, preparing and answering pleadings, crafting written discovery, conducting effective depositions, and presenting oral argument, while exploring the nuanced issues that arise in civil rights practice, including client management, dealing with client and personal trauma and triggers, establishing noneconomic harm, and collaborative practice.
Professor Steinberg's section: This course examines how civil rights lawyers use federal civil rights litigation to address contemporary social problems. Students will develop and litigate a simulated case based on an actual racial profiling controversy in Ann Arbor. They will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, complaint drafting, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions and negotiations. Students will learn how to overcome the many procedural obstacles to justice posed by 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and explore the ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers when representing clients in civil rights cases. The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving social change when it is a part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.
Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.
The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election. It fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

This course will consider problems relating to the police role in the administration of criminal justice and judicial enforcement of limitations upon police practices. We will focus primarily on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments and will answer the following questions: (1) When can the police stop, search, and/or arrest people? (2) When can the police search cars, homes, and offices and for what? (3) What are the laws surrounding police interrogation and confessions? (4) Who has a right to counsel and when and how is it triggered? (5) How are police line-ups and other identification procedures conducted and what are the constitutional limits on such procedures? (6) What remedy does a defendant have if his/her constitutional criminal procedure rights are violated? When is the evidence excluded and when should it be excluded?

• Type: Upper Class

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

This course explores the foundational principles and doctrines governing the legal and political relationships among the United States and Indian tribes. Major topics in the course include the history of federal Indian law and policy, congressional plenary power, tribal sovereignty, and jurisdiction in Indian country. In examining these topics, we will discuss laws and policies concerning tribal justice and legal systems.

• Type: Upper Class

Spend a semester working with other law students and upper-level undergraduate students to support lawyers from the Michigan Immigration Rights Center on asylum cases here in Michigan. Under faculty supervision, students will learn to draft asylum briefs, summarize and translate historical texts, research effective legal arguments, and contribute to developing a national research database for use in asylum cases. Students will also deepen their understanding of immigration law and policy, develop historical and legal research skills, and explore the history of violence and migration through work on real-life asylum cases. This class is ideal for students who are eager to work conscientiously and ethically with others in teams to benefit a non-profit community partner. Instructor permission required.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Progressive Prosecution: Law and Policy
Although prosecuting attorneys have typically taken a "tough-on-crime" approach, a growing number of elected prosecutors from across the country are taking a "progressive" approach. These "progressive prosecutors" see their role as combatting overincarceration, eliminating racial and socioeconomic inequity, and changing a criminal legal system that too frequently exacerbates those inequities.
This course, co-taught by Washtenaw County Prosecuting Attorney Eli Savit and Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Victoria Burton-Harris, will explore the theoretical underpinnings behind the "progressive prosecutor" movement; its promises and limitations; and the progress the movement has made over the past several years. During the latter part of the course, students will work on real-world research and writing projects that will be used by the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office to move forward its progressive vision.

• Type: Practice Simulation

The civil rights movement, Brown v. Board of Education, and the passage of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s were milestones in American history. Those events, along with the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama as the nation's first Black president, suggested that the eradication of racial subordination in America was achievable, if not imminent. To date, that hasn't happened. Throughout our history we have attempted to overcome race, only to be disappointed by the illusion that race had been overcome. The law has not been a neutral force in this dynamic. It has created and maintained a regime of white supremacy in the United States. At the same time, the law has also provided the tools essential to resist that regime. This course explicates this paradox. It is designed to reveal the pervasiveness, complexity, richness, and significance of racial controversies as they relate to the law. To that end, the class will examine the intersection of race and the law across a range of settings, subject matters and time periods including slavery, Reconstruction, K-12 and higher education, affirmative action, the First Amendment, and voting and political participation. The materials consist of a mix of cases, videos and scholarly commentary.

• Type: Upper Class

Regulating the Political Process: Voting and Election Law
This course will explore the law governing the right to vote in the United States. It will examine the way the law and other forces have shaped the structure of American political participation, and will consider alternative directions American democracy might take. Topics will include the 2000 presidential election dispute, the individual right to vote, reapportionment, representation of minority interests in democratic bodies, preclearance procedures, political and racial gerrymandering, direct democracy, and alternative voting systems. A central aim of this course is to explore general issues of democratic theory in the context of the legal frameworks and the actual institutions that regulate American democracy.

• Type: Upper Class

Professor Chaney's section: This course will explore the practical, conceptual and procedural mechanics of civil rights practice through mock litigation of one or more simulated case studies. Students will engage the stages of litigation, including claim and defense development, preparing and answering pleadings, crafting written discovery, conducting effective depositions, and presenting oral argument, while exploring the nuanced issues that arise in civil rights practice, including client management, dealing with client and personal trauma and triggers, establishing noneconomic harm, and collaborative practice.
Professor Steinberg's section: This course examines how civil rights lawyers use federal civil rights litigation to address contemporary social problems. Students will develop and litigate a simulated case based on an actual racial profiling controversy in Ann Arbor. They will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, complaint drafting, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions and negotiations. Students will learn how to overcome the many procedural obstacles to justice posed by 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and explore the ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers when representing clients in civil rights cases. The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving social change when it is a part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.
Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.
The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election. It fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

This course will consider problems relating to the police role in the administration of criminal justice and judicial enforcement of limitations upon police practices. We will focus primarily on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments and will answer the following questions: (1) When can the police stop, search, and/or arrest people? (2) When can the police search cars, homes, and offices and for what? (3) What are the laws surrounding police interrogation and confessions? (4) Who has a right to counsel and when and how is it triggered? (5) How are police line-ups and other identification procedures conducted and what are the constitutional limits on such procedures? (6) What remedy does a defendant have if his/her constitutional criminal procedure rights are violated? When is the evidence excluded and when should it be excluded?

• Type: Upper Class

Critical Race Theory in Clinical Practice will examine readings and ideas in critical theory, in particular Critical Race Theory (CRT), in concert with upper-level clinic students and their client's legal and lived experiences in clinical practice. Over the semester, students will be introduced to the foundations of CRT and also examine a range of lawyering skills informed by a CRT framework. The class is open to students from all upper-level clinics and seeks to foster dialogue across substantive legal areas, develop community across clinics, help students develop more empathy for their clients, particularly their clients who are members of marginalized groups, which in turn will enhance their client representation, and invite students to think about race and the systemic nature of racism in ways that goes beyond an individual case or body of law.

• Type: Seminar

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

Spend a semester working with other law students and upper-level undergraduate students to support lawyers from the Michigan Immigration Rights Center on asylum cases here in Michigan. Under faculty supervision, students will learn to draft asylum briefs, summarize and translate historical texts, research effective legal arguments, and contribute to developing a national research database for use in asylum cases. Students will also deepen their understanding of immigration law and policy, develop historical and legal research skills, and explore the history of violence and migration through work on real-life asylum cases. This class is ideal for students who are eager to work conscientiously and ethically with others in teams to benefit a non-profit community partner. Instructor permission required.

• Type: Practice Simulation

The civil rights movement, Brown v. Board of Education, and the passage of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s were milestones in American history. Those events, along with the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama as the nation's first Black president, suggested that the eradication of racial subordination in America was achievable, if not imminent. To date, that hasn't happened. Throughout our history we have attempted to overcome race, only to be disappointed by the illusion that race had been overcome. The law has not been a neutral force in this dynamic. It has created and maintained a regime of white supremacy in the United States. At the same time, the law has also provided the tools essential to resist that regime. This course explicates this paradox. It is designed to reveal the pervasiveness, complexity, richness, and significance of racial controversies as they relate to the law. To that end, the class will examine the intersection of race and the law across a range of settings, subject matters and time periods including slavery, Reconstruction, K-12 and higher education, affirmative action, the First Amendment, and voting and political participation. The materials consist of a mix of cases, videos and scholarly commentary.

• Type: Upper Class

This seminar will examine sexual orientation and gender identity in the U.S. legal system. We will explore the ways in which different views of sexual orientation and gender identity have influenced the constitutional and statutory rights of gays, lesbians, and transgender people. Topics will include: anti-sodomy laws; associational rights (relating to both associations among LGBT persons and those who seek to exclude such persons from public and private spaces and activities); anti-gay ballot initiatives; military service; efforts to expand and limit family and parental rights, including second-parent adoption and marriage rights; equality rights in educational contexts; equal employment opportunity; and religious freedom restoration acts. Throughout, we'll consider the interactions among lawyers and legal advocacy; LGBT movements; legislative politics; and doctrinal development in state and federal courts, as well as in administrative agencies such as the EEOC and the federal Department of Education.

• Type: Seminar

Professor Chaney's section: This course will explore the practical, conceptual and procedural mechanics of civil rights practice through mock litigation of one or more simulated case studies. Students will engage the stages of litigation, including claim and defense development, preparing and answering pleadings, crafting written discovery, conducting effective depositions, and presenting oral argument, while exploring the nuanced issues that arise in civil rights practice, including client management, dealing with client and personal trauma and triggers, establishing noneconomic harm, and collaborative practice.
Professor Steinberg's section: This course examines how civil rights lawyers use federal civil rights litigation to address contemporary social problems. Students will develop and litigate a simulated case based on an actual racial profiling controversy in Ann Arbor. They will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, complaint drafting, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions and negotiations. Students will learn how to overcome the many procedural obstacles to justice posed by 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and explore the ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers when representing clients in civil rights cases. The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving social change when it is a part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.
Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.
The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election. It fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

This course will consider problems relating to the police role in the administration of criminal justice and judicial enforcement of limitations upon police practices. We will focus primarily on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments and will answer the following questions: (1) When can the police stop, search, and/or arrest people? (2) When can the police search cars, homes, and offices and for what? (3) What are the laws surrounding police interrogation and confessions? (4) Who has a right to counsel and when and how is it triggered? (5) How are police line-ups and other identification procedures conducted and what are the constitutional limits on such procedures? (6) What remedy does a defendant have if his/her constitutional criminal procedure rights are violated? When is the evidence excluded and when should it be excluded?

• Type: Upper Class

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

Spend a semester working with other law students and upper-level undergraduate students to support lawyers from the Michigan Immigration Rights Center on asylum cases here in Michigan. Under faculty supervision, students will learn to draft asylum briefs, summarize and translate historical texts, research effective legal arguments, and contribute to developing a national research database for use in asylum cases. Students will also deepen their understanding of immigration law and policy, develop historical and legal research skills, and explore the history of violence and migration through work on real-life asylum cases. This class is ideal for students who are eager to work conscientiously and ethically with others in teams to benefit a non-profit community partner. Instructor permission required.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Privacy, Technology, and the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures operates in a rapidly changing world. For example, advancing technology gives law enforcement and national security officials the power to hear or read most of our communications (through wiretapping our phones, tracking our phone calls, and reading our emails), read most of our private records (through searching our computers and smartphones and social media websites), and detect our whereabouts (through cell phone tracking or public cameras). Courts have struggled to interpret and apply established judicial doctrines as they adjudicate these and other novel conflicts between privacy and law enforcement / national security interests. Legislative efforts to draw additional lines have produced mixed results. And as technology continues to advance, the stakes grow ever higher.
This seminar will assume basic knowledge of Fourth Amendment doctrine and address the scope of Fourth Amendment rights and remedies in this era of rapid technological change. We will carefully read judicial decisions and analyze constitutional rulemaking, as well as investigate cutting-edge issues in the field. While the course should particularly interest students inclined to become prosecutors or criminal defense lawyers, it should also interest students wanting an intense exposure to constitutional legal reasoning.

• Type: Seminar

Progressive Prosecution: Law and Policy
Although prosecuting attorneys have typically taken a "tough-on-crime" approach, a growing number of elected prosecutors from across the country are taking a "progressive" approach. These "progressive prosecutors" see their role as combatting overincarceration, eliminating racial and socioeconomic inequity, and changing a criminal legal system that too frequently exacerbates those inequities.
This course, co-taught by Washtenaw County Prosecuting Attorney Eli Savit and Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Victoria Burton-Harris, will explore the theoretical underpinnings behind the "progressive prosecutor" movement; its promises and limitations; and the progress the movement has made over the past several years. During the latter part of the course, students will work on real-world research and writing projects that will be used by the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office to move forward its progressive vision.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Regulating the Political Process: Voting and Election Law
This course will explore the law governing the right to vote in the United States. It will examine the way the law and other forces have shaped the structure of American political participation, and will consider alternative directions American democracy might take. Topics will include the 2000 presidential election dispute, the individual right to vote, reapportionment, representation of minority interests in democratic bodies, preclearance procedures, political and racial gerrymandering, direct democracy, and alternative voting systems. A central aim of this course is to explore general issues of democratic theory in the context of the legal frameworks and the actual institutions that regulate American democracy.

• Type: Upper Class

The Boundaries of Citizenship: Inclusion, Exclusion, and the History of Civil Rights under Law
This course explores access to citizenship in historical context, examining how membership in the social and political community has been defined in the United States, and how those definitions have changed over time. We will ask what rights could be claimed when --and on what basis--by formerly enslaved persons, by women and by men, by immigrants, by Indigenous peoples, and by residents of territories acquired by the United States. Students will work in teams on key historical cases, and will carry out individual primary-source research on related topics. There is a midterm exam and a final paper requirement, but no final exam. We will read case decisions as well as books and articles by authors including Martha S. Jones, Kunal Parker, Eric Foner, and Thomas C. Holt.
A draft syllabus may be downloaded from the "Syllabi" link on the instructor's website: https://www.law.umich.edu/facultyhome/rebeccascott/

• Type: Upper Class

Professor Chaney's section: This course will explore the practical, conceptual and procedural mechanics of civil rights practice through mock litigation of one or more simulated case studies. Students will engage the stages of litigation, including claim and defense development, preparing and answering pleadings, crafting written discovery, conducting effective depositions, and presenting oral argument, while exploring the nuanced issues that arise in civil rights practice, including client management, dealing with client and personal trauma and triggers, establishing noneconomic harm, and collaborative practice.
Professor Steinberg's section: This course examines how civil rights lawyers use federal civil rights litigation to address contemporary social problems. Students will develop and litigate a simulated case based on an actual racial profiling controversy in Ann Arbor. They will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, complaint drafting, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions and negotiations. Students will learn how to overcome the many procedural obstacles to justice posed by 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and explore the ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers when representing clients in civil rights cases. The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving social change when it is a part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.
Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.
The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election. It fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

Spend a semester working with other law students and upper-level undergraduate students to support lawyers from the Michigan Immigration Rights Center on asylum cases here in Michigan. Under faculty supervision, students will learn to draft asylum briefs, summarize and translate historical texts, research effective legal arguments, and contribute to developing a national research database for use in asylum cases. Students will also deepen their understanding of immigration law and policy, develop historical and legal research skills, and explore the history of violence and migration through work on real-life asylum cases. This class is ideal for students who are eager to work conscientiously and ethically with others in teams to benefit a non-profit community partner. Instructor permission required.

• Type: Practice Simulation

One model of social change entails the strategic use of carefully planned litigation to achieve law and policy reforms. In this seminar we will explore the benefits and drawbacks of the impact litigation model, compare impact litigation to other models of public interest law, and consider its ethical and professional implications. Then, turning to two local case studies involving criminal law reform, we will examine how impact litigation can work in practice. How were these cases selected and developed? What strategic decisions had to made along the way? How were the cases shaped by procedural limitations and extrajudicial considerations? Students will be tasked with either undertaking their own case study or proposing a new case that fits within the impact litigation model.

• Type: Seminar

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In 1980, approximately 500,000 people were behind bars in this country. Now, even after significant pandemic-related, the figure approaches 2 million (over two-thirds of whom are non-white), incarcerated in jails, state prisons, and federal prisons. This course will examine the constitutional law, and some statutory law, relevant to their incarceration. The central topics will be the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments and its Fourteenth Amendment analog, and Congress's regulation of litigation brought by prisoners in the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Other classes will examine First Amendment rights in prison, solitary and supermax confinement, race discrimination inside jails and prison, and the law of injunctive relief in constitutional cases brought by inmates. (We will not discuss criminal procedure, habeas corpus, or sentencing.) This course is for anyone interested in civil rights, criminal prosecution, or criminal defense.
The course will be co-taught by UM Prof. Margo Schlanger and Amy Fettig, the director of the Sentencing Project and former Deputy Director of the ACLU's National Prison Project. It is 2 credits, meeting 4 hours per week for the first 5 weeks of the semester, with one weekend day negotiation exercise on Feb. 5 or 6. Note: Professor Schlanger has been nominated for an administration position. If she is confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Fettig will teach the class alone from that point forward.

• Type: Upper Class

Theory and practice are engaged in an inquiry into the relationship between sex inequality in society and sex equality under law. Context provided draws on social science, history, international and comparative law. The dominant approach to legal equality is examined on its own terms and through an alternative. Concrete issues-employment discrimination, family, rape, sexual harassment, lesbian and gay rights, abortion, prostitution, pornography-focus discussion through cases. Racism, class, and transgender status are considered throughout. The course investigates, criticizes, and expands the law toward civil equality between the sexes and on the basis of gender.

• Type: Upper Class

This seminar will examine sexual orientation and gender identity in the U.S. legal system. We will explore the ways in which different views of sexual orientation and gender identity have influenced the constitutional and statutory rights of gays, lesbians, and transgender people. Topics will include: anti-sodomy laws; associational rights (relating to both associations among LGBT persons and those who seek to exclude such persons from public and private spaces and activities); anti-gay ballot initiatives; military service; efforts to expand and limit family and parental rights, including second-parent adoption and marriage rights; equality rights in educational contexts; equal employment opportunity; and religious freedom restoration acts. Throughout, we'll consider the interactions among lawyers and legal advocacy; LGBT movements; legislative politics; and doctrinal development in state and federal courts, as well as in administrative agencies such as the EEOC and the federal Department of Education.

• Type: Seminar