Course Catalog

Legal Practice Skills I concludes the second half of the first semester of Legal Practice by building on the skills to which students were introduced in Legal Practice: Writing & Analysis. The course gives students the chance to further develop their core analytical and writing abilities while expanding their legal repertoires to include other essential lawyering skills. Throughout LP Skills I, students are placed in the role of a lawyer representing a client in assorted factual circumstances, and are then taught how and why lawyers might bring to bear various skills in those situations. For example, students might have the opportunity to learn how to conduct client interviews to help determine whether a client has a viable potential claim. (In some sections, this could culminate in interviews of real clients.) Students might also receive their first opportunity to act as a counselor, helping clients choose between possible ways to try to resolve a legal problem. Students may also be exposed to fact investigation and assessment, via taking depositions or other discovery and forensic techniques. Further, students may be exposed to additional types of customary legal work product, such as client letters and professional emails. Students will also continue to expand their knowledge of legal research sources and strategies, learning how to find the law they need to adequately advise and represent their clients. Professors provide frequent feedback to students as part of all of these assignments, which may include the chance to re-write particular written projects. Students are also expected to self-assess what they’re learning and where they might need to continue developing particular skills.

• Type: First Year Required

Legal Practice: Fundamentals of Legal Writing and Analysis is the first component of a yearlong set of courses taken by all first-year students, in which students begin to develop the skills that are necessary to practicing law. This course, comprising the first half of the first semester, introduces students to the fundamental analytical and writing skills that they’ll continue developing over the rest of the Legal Practice course sequence. The timing and range of specific skills covered in LP Writing & Analysis differs from professor to professor, but students will be expected to prepare at least one extensive written assignment, learning to present objective written analysis of a legal problem to a client or a fellow attorney, and to persuade their reader that their analysis is complete and accurate. In doing so, students come to appreciate how a commitment to scrupulously thorough writing promotes analytic rigor. Via intensive critiques from their professors, students learn how constantly revising their work product makes their analysis more precise.

• Type: First Year Required

In the modern regulatory state, the rules that most profoundly shape private conduct come not from the common law but, instead, from legislatures and agencies. This class will explore the lawmaking function of these institutions and the virtues and vices of administrative governance. Among other things, the class will cover: the nature of the legislative process; statutory interpretation; the justifications for regulatory intervention; regulatory tools and strategies; the allocation of authority between legislatures and agencies; the varied forms of agency decision-making; and judicial review of agency decisions. In offering a survey of public law, the course will introduce students to the essentials of both statutory interpretation and administrative law.

• Type: Upper Class

This practical course will introduce students to the legislative drafting process, including the tools required for effectively crafting and revising legislation. Students will first learn the fundamental concepts necessary for successful legislative drafting from a practitioner’s perspective, including understanding how laws are made, how issues of statutory interpretation affect drafting choices, and how drafting choices affect other laws already in effect. They will then learn how to draft and organize original and amended legislation, through examples and exercises. In the second half of the semester, students will work towards a final project — original or revised legislation related to a topic of their choice, which includes a narrative explaining the problem to be solved by the legislation and how the drafted legislation solves the problem. During this part of the semester, students will present their project in various stages to the class, and get feedback. Individual feedback will also be given throughout the semester in writing and in conference. By introducing the facets involved in the legislative drafting process, the goal is to help students detect and appreciate concerns that arise from inartful drafting, which could be mitigated before enactment, rather than only upon post-enactment judicial review.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students in the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC) represent individuals with federal and state tax controversies through administrative advocacy and litigation in the United States Tax Court. Students can expect to gain exposure to a broad range of tax problems, both substantive and procedural, that will be valuable when working with clients of any income level in the future. Students also work with community organizations to provide information about tax issues and taxpayer rights and responsibilities to individuals who speak English as a second language.
The LITC is a 7 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. The 4 credit clinic and 3 credit seminar are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass (“P”) election.
The Clinic fulfills the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.
The Clinic fulfills the Statutory or Regulatory Course Distribution Requirement for graduation applicable to JD students who matriculated in May 2016 and thereafter.

• Type: Clinic

Students in the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC) represent individuals with federal and state tax controversies through administrative advocacy and litigation in the United States Tax Court. Students can expect to gain exposure to a broad range of tax problems, both substantive and procedural, that will be valuable when working with clients of any income level in the future. Students also work with community organizations to provide information about tax issues and taxpayer rights and responsibilities to individuals who speak English as a second language.
The LITC is a 7 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. The 4 credit clinic and 3 credit seminar are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass (“P”) election.
The Clinic fulfills the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.
The Clinic fulfills the Statutory or Regulatory Course Distribution Requirement for graduation applicable to JD students who matriculated in May 2016 and thereafter.

• Type: Clinic

The Public Defender Training Institute is an intensive immersion into the world of indigent defense designed to train aspiring public defenders. The Institute kicks off in the fall semester with a three-day intensive retreat at the law school in the fall. During the fall semester, students learn about the role of the public defender, different kinds of public defender work, how public defenders differ from prosecutors and private defense attorneys, how to incorporate social science into their advocacy, how to address race and deal with implicit and explicit racial bias in the system, and how to handle the challenges that public defenders face (including excessive caseloads, secondary trauma, and ethical issues). They also learn effective pre-trial preparation with skills-based training on client interviewing, investigation, taking witness statements, obtaining discovery, storytelling and persuasion, preliminary hearings, and developing a theory of the case.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Founded in 2009, the Michigan Innocence Clinic was the first innocence clinic in the country to focus exclusively on non-DNA cases. In the MIC’s sixteen-year history, it has achieved victories in 45 cases on behalf of clients who had been wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit.
Students registered in the MIC investigate and litigate cases on behalf of incarcerated people who are actually innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. Students work on all aspects of the cases, including researching claims of innocence and the law pertaining to them, investigating new evidence, writing and editing court briefs and motions, and participating in courtroom activities when there are hearings scheduled in their cases.
The clinic also features a seminar component, where students explore in class the legal and policy issues underlying wrongful convictions and engage in practical skills exercises such as mock direct/cross exams and oral arguments. There are no exams or papers; students are graded on their preparedness and contribution to class, various in-class exercises, the progress they make in their cases, and the quality of their case-related work product. Students are required to complete six office hours per week in the clinic’s office, in addition to class time and the usual outside-of-class time spent doing seminar readings and case-related tasks.
The MIC’s docket spans both state and federal courts and is quite diverse and novel. No two cases are the same, and non-DNA innocence litigation continues to be a fascinating challenge within the field of criminal litigation. Students work with supervising attorneys to craft legal strategies and explore evidentiary and procedural avenues for obtaining relief, many of which have been expanded in recent years due to the work of the MIC and other such organizations.
Students interested in criminal law/procedure, appellate practice, brief writing, public interest work, innocence litigation, or courtroom advocacy would be especially suitable for the MIC. That said, there is also plenty in the clinic that would interest those who don’t plan to pursue a litigation career. There are no specific prerequisites (outside of the regular first-year courses), and no prior specialized knowledge of criminal defense or innocence litigation is required or expected.
* Clinic spans fall and winter semesters of one academic year. Students may register during winter of 1L or 2L year for enrollment during 2L or 3L year, respectively.

• Type: Clinic

Founded in 2009, the Michigan Innocence Clinic was the first innocence clinic in the country to focus exclusively on non-DNA cases. In the MIC’s sixteen-year history, it has achieved victories in 45 cases on behalf of clients who had been wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit.
Students registered in the MIC investigate and litigate cases on behalf of incarcerated people who are actually innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. Students work on all aspects of the cases, including researching claims of innocence and the law pertaining to them, investigating new evidence, writing and editing court briefs and motions, and participating in courtroom activities when there are hearings scheduled in their cases.
The clinic also features a seminar component, where students explore in class the legal and policy issues underlying wrongful convictions and engage in practical skills exercises such as mock direct/cross exams and oral arguments. There are no exams or papers; students are graded on their preparedness and contribution to class, various in-class exercises, the progress they make in their cases, and the quality of their case-related work product. Students are required to complete six office hours per week in the clinic’s office, in addition to class time and the usual outside-of-class time spent doing seminar readings and case-related tasks.
The MIC’s docket spans both state and federal courts and is quite diverse and novel. No two cases are the same, and non-DNA innocence litigation continues to be a fascinating challenge within the field of criminal litigation. Students work with supervising attorneys to craft legal strategies and explore evidentiary and procedural avenues for obtaining relief, many of which have been expanded in recent years due to the work of the MIC and other such organizations.
Students interested in criminal law/procedure, appellate practice, brief writing, public interest work, innocence litigation, or courtroom advocacy would be especially suitable for the MIC. That said, there is also plenty in the clinic that would interest those who don’t plan to pursue a litigation career. There are no specific prerequisites (outside of the regular first-year courses), and no prior specialized knowledge of criminal defense or innocence litigation is required or expected.
* Clinic spans fall and winter semesters of one academic year. Students may register during winter of 1L or 2L year for enrollment during 2L or 3L year, respectively.

• Type: Clinic

Course description depends on the mini-seminar topic. https://michigan.law.umich.edu/resource-center/mini-seminars

• Type: Mini-Seminar

National Security and Civil Liberties
This course will examine the balance between protecting national security and safeguarding constitutional values. We will explore government tools designed to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks and to detect espionage. We will also study the impact these tools have on privacy, free speech, free assembly, open courts, and transparency in government. Topics will include electronic surveillance conducted by NSA and FBI pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”); investigative techniques authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act; use of informants and sting operations; the Classified Information Procedures Act (“CIPA”); the role and impact of leaks, such as those by Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks; detention of enemy combatants at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and military tribunals; free speech implications of prohibiting material support to designated terrorist organizations; the use of immigration law to protect national security; exploitation of social media; free speech and assembly rights of domestic extremist groups; and related topics.

• Type: Upper Class

Professor Kaye’s section:
Learning to negotiate effectively involves negotiating, observing, critiquing, and consciously applying effective strategy and skill. This course introduces students to the science, the art, and the practice of negotiation through a sequenced series of simulation exercises, which students will perform inside and outside of class. Class sessions will be used, in part, for negotiations, debriefing results, and discussion. Course readings will include negotiation literature and theory that inform effective practice. Students will be evaluated based on some combination of class participation, negotiation exercises, and periodic reflection papers.
Professor Kimball’s section:
Learning to negotiate effectively involves negotiating, observing, critiquing, and consciously applying effective strategy and skill. This course introduces students to the science, art, and practice of negotiation through readings, discussion, and simulated negotiation exercises performed inside and outside of class. Class sessions are used, in part, for negotiation exercises and debriefing about results. Readings will include negotiation literature and theory that inform effective practice, and application of ethical concepts and rules as they pertain to negotiations in particular, and more generally, to work with clients, other counsel and the courts. Students will write a research paper about an actual negotiation of their choice, applying negotiation concepts to such real world examples as mergers, acquisitions, labor disputes, settlements, treaties, and a variety of transactions and controversies.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Law 990 - This course offers students the opportunity to integrate practical experience in a legal setting outside the Law School with a Law School classroom experience. Each student will spend at least EIGHT (Section 1), TWELVE (Section 2), SIXTEEN (Section 3) or TWENTY (Section 4) hours per week working under the supervision of an attorney at a local non-profit, government agency, or court. Students may not receive any compensation for their work. Students will arrange their own placements, though interested students who need guidance about how to pursue a placement are welcome to make an appointment with the course professor, Amy Sankaran ([email protected]). Past placements have included the ACLU of Michigan, Family Law Project, Neighborhood Defender Service of Detroit, Magistrate, District, and Court of Appeals Judges, the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office and Office of the Public Defender, and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, to name a few.

Part-Time Externship students will be co-enrolled in the Part-Time Externship Seminar (Law 991, 1 credit). Thus a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 1 will receive 3 credits total, a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 2 will receive 4 credits total, a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 3 will receive 5 credits total, and a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 4 will receive 6 credits total.

• Type: Externship

One of the first medical-legal partnerships to be based in a law school setting, Pediatric Advocacy Clinic (PAC) students become part of an interdisciplinary team working to improve child health by providing legal assistance to low-income families on issues related to child health. Casework includes advocacy around special education, school discipline, domestic violence and family law, Medicaid and other public benefits, and housing conditions. PAC students take “first chair” responsibility for their cases and are involved in all aspects of a case. They learn a range of advocacy skills, from preventive legal advocacy (focusing on identifying issues at an early stage and on developing creative, multidisciplinary approaches to addressing them) to traditional litigation skills in both administrative and trial court settings. The PAC is 7 credits (4 for the seminar and 3 for the clinic) and all credits are graded. The PAC meets the New York Pro Bono requirement.
The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

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

Public Interest Litigation Ethics
Most legal ethics courses tend to fall naturally on the “corporate” or “big firm” side of things. In this seminar we will focus on the ethical issues that arise in public interest practice — Legal Aid, the ACLU, private offices handling civil rights cases, criminal defense attorneys, government lawyers (including prosecutors), and agencies like the National Wildlife Federation. We will cover a range of ethical issues, but from the perspective of lawyers who are trying to do well while doing good. We will include simulations, like mock grievance hearings in which students will have to defend the ethical positions they have taken. Students will get useful practical knowledge of the ethics rules, and a keener sense of how to stay out of trouble in a public interest practice.

• Type: Upper Class

Public-Sector Structural Reform in K-12 Education Practicum

The United States is in the midst of a massive restructuring of public-sector service delivery and regulation, particularly as they relate to the governance and management of its public schools. Staffed by broadly interdisciplinary teams of accomplished professionals, the most successful of the new federal, state, and local education organizations are replacing decades-old public bureaucracies and interest group politics with “learning organizations” committed to using public problem solving techniques to accelerate adult and institutional, as well student learning.

This Public Education Policy Seminar and Practicum originates at Columbia Law School, and attracts upper-level graduate students in law, business, education, and policy from Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale, and other universities for a full semester of intensive engagement with each other around transformational change in public education. Second and third-year law students may take the course either in the fall semester or the spring semester. 13 units of credit are awarded with the grades transferring to Michigan Law School.

Participants in the program take part in a rigorous and rewarding learning experience, including:

(i) An engaging interdisciplinary seminar in the design, regulation, governance, democratic accountability, and transformation of K-12 school systems and allied public- and social-sector organizations; [4 credits]

(ii) Comprehensive skills training in team-based problem solving, managing multidimensional (legal, operational, etc.) projects to specified outcomes in complex environments, client counseling, and effective communication [2 credits]; and

(iii) A high-priority project designing and implementing legal and policy solutions to a complex problem at the core of a client public- or social-sector organization’s mission to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of children. [7 credits].

The Program Offers:

* Intensive experiential learning on interdisciplinary teams and cutting-edge projects

* Deep engagement in public education improvement strategies and debates

* Panels and field trips interacting with prominent education leaders

* 1:1 mentoring, K-12 education career support, and networking opportunities

* Merit scholarships for exceptional students

* Challenging, fun, and meaningful work helping to improve kids’ learning and lives

Admission to the course is by application. A limited number of $25,000 scholarships are available for exceptional students to apply to their law school tuition in return for a commitment to spending time after graduation and judicial clerkships in a public or nonprofit job in the education sector.

For more information, including a course FAQ, names of Michigan Law students who have taken the previous version of the course, or lists of past projects in which students have engaged in the Course, please email [email protected] or Professor Amy Sankaran at [email protected].

*This description was adapted from Columbia Law School’s own course description, which can be found on Columbia Law School’s web site: http://www.law.columbia.edu/ (search on L8016).

• Type: Externship

Public-Sector Structural Reform in K-12 Education Seminar

The United States is in the midst of a massive restructuring of public-sector service delivery and regulation, particularly as they relate to the governance and management of its public schools. Staffed by broadly interdisciplinary teams of accomplished professionals, the most successful of the new federal, state, and local education organizations are replacing decades-old public bureaucracies and interest group politics with “learning organizations” committed to using public problem solving techniques to accelerate adult and institutional, as well student learning.

This Public Education Policy Seminar and Practicum originates at Columbia Law School, and attracts upper-level graduate students in law, business, education, and policy from Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale, and other universities for a full semester of intensive engagement with each other around transformational change in public education. Second and third-year law students may take the course either in the fall semester or the spring semester. 13 units of credit are awarded with the grades transferring to Michigan Law School.

Participants in the program take part in a rigorous and rewarding learning experience, including:

(i) An engaging interdisciplinary seminar in the design, regulation, governance, democratic accountability, and transformation of K-12 school systems and allied public- and social-sector organizations; [4 credits]

(ii) Comprehensive skills training in team-based problem solving, managing multidimensional (legal, operational, etc.) projects to specified outcomes in complex environments, client counseling, and effective communication [2 credits]; and

(iii) A high-priority project designing and implementing legal and policy solutions to a complex problem at the core of a client public- or social-sector organization’s mission to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of children. [7 credits].

The Program Offers:

* Intensive experiential learning on interdisciplinary teams and cutting-edge projects

* Deep engagement in public education improvement strategies and debates

* Panels and field trips interacting with prominent education leaders

* 1:1 mentoring, K-12 education career support, and networking opportunities

* Merit scholarships for exceptional students

* Challenging, fun, and meaningful work helping to improve kids’ learning and lives

Admission to the course is by application. A limited number of $25,000 scholarships are available for exceptional students to apply to their law school tuition in return for a commitment to spending time after graduation and judicial clerkships in a public or nonprofit job in the education sector.

For more information, including a course FAQ, names of Michigan Law students who have taken the previous version of the course, or lists of past projects in which students have engaged in the Course, please email [email protected] or Professor Amy Sankaran at [email protected].

*This description was adapted from Columbia Law School’s own course description, which can be found on Columbia Law School’s web site: http://www.law.columbia.edu/ (search on L8016).

• Type: Externship

This seminar examines the redistricting process and efforts to reform it through a close look at the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC). Created by a constitutional amendment adopted by Michigan voters in 2018, the thirteen member MICRC voted to approve new congressional and state legislative maps in 2021. The seminar will examine how the Commission was created, its structure, the process and criteria it used to adopt the maps selected, and the various legal challenges that followed. More broadly, the seminar will consider increased reliance on redistricting commissions nationwide, the different structures and criteria commissions use, and their role in the redistricting process going forward.

• Type: Seminar

This course is restricted to foreign students in the advanced degree program. Its purpose is to acquaint students from civil law countries with American legal analysis, research, and writing.

• Type: Upper Class