Course Catalog

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

This contemporaneous, one-credit seminar is held every semester as a required companion to the Part-Time Externship (Law 990). For more information, please visit the course description for Law 990.

• Type: Externship

This course covers the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code that deal with partnerships including such items as: the definition of a partnership for tax purposes; the utilization and importance of a “balance sheet” analysis of partnership activities; the question of whether a partnership is treated as an entity or as an aggregate of separate interests; the transfer of assets to and from a partnership; the allocation of partnership tax attributes; the special treatment of recourse and nonrecourse liabilities; the operation of a partnership; the determination of a partnership’s basis in its assets and a partner’s basis in the partnership interest; the restrictions on the deductibility of a partner’s share of partnership losses; the effect of a change in partnership interests; and the disposition of partnership interests.

• Type: Upper Class

This course will provide an introduction to basic concepts of patent law, focusing on legal issues that arise in the course of obtaining and enforcing patents. The course is designed to be suitable for students planning to enter a general practice as well as those planning to specialize in intellectual property. A technical background is not a prerequisite, but students will be required to read and discuss cases involving technical facts.

• Type: Upper Class

Conflict involving youth, family, communities and institutions inexorably finds its way into state court justice systems. Once there, litigants find that institutional pathways available to them not only effect legal consequences to their actions, but more importantly, have longstanding affects on their lives, as well as the lives of others. This class introduces students to the emergence of one such path in state court justice systems: peacemaking.
The introduction begins with the exploration of the roots of peacemaking from indigenous nations within our national border. Students will learn from nationally renowned native guest lecturers about world views, tribal justice systems, tensions between native justice systems and western-model court systems and the opportunity for nurturing communication, collaboration and finding common ground between the two.
Thereafter, students will engage in exploring the practical application of peacemaking in state justice systems in family, probate, civil and criminal proceedings. As part of that engagement, students will first conduct a mock trial in a subject area of their choosing through a traditional adversarial model, and then through a peacemaking approach.
Finally, students will explore emerging branches from peacemaking in state justice systems. This exploration will include current models around the country, as well as inspiration from models outside of our borders such as South Africa, Canada and Ireland.
The class is co taught by a trial attorney with criminal and family court experience, and a state court presiding judge of a peacemaking court. In addition to the mock trial, a final paper will serve in lieu of a final exam.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course, structured as a seminar, will explore foundational questions concerning prices and pricing from a legal perspective. Questions we may consider include: What does it mean for prices to be fair? Why have prices at all? How does price-setting occur (in theory and practice)? What are appropriate social goals relating to prices? How should we understand and respond to generalized price inflation or deflation? What is, and should be, law’s role in all this? Legal regimes that already implicate questions of prices and pricing will be considered, including labor regulation and competition law, as well as examples of sector-specific price regulation or publicly coordinated prices. In addition to legal sources, our readings and discussion may also draw from, among others: economics and the history of economic thought, philosophy, accounting, and current events and debates in economic policy.

• Type: Seminar

This foundational course surveys the law of property, which defines the interests, rights, and duties with respect to spaces and things that the law recognizes and protects. The course covers how property interests may be obtained, held, used, and transferred, as found in the law of possessory estates and future interests in land, concurrent estates, easements, covenants, personal property, bailments, intellectual property, conveyancing, adverse possession, nuisance, zoning and land-use, takings, and housing law. The concepts of property, possession, and ownership—and the consequences flowing from these concepts—will be constantly examined. The overall focus will be on how property law fundamentally structures the rights and duties between individuals in their interactions with the world, shaping our physical, social, and economic spaces.

• Type: Upper Class

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: Seminar

Public-Sector Structural Reform in K-12 Education Externship

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, and all of the credits are graded, 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 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, and all of the credits are graded, 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, and all of the credits are graded, 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 is a survey course on the practical results of litigation — everything a court can do for a claimant who has been wronged. We will survey the principal remedies: compensatory damages; preventive, reparative, and structural injunctions; declaratory remedies; restitution; punitive damages; statutory remedies; and attorney’s fees. We will constantly ask what the plaintiff can get, why she can get that, why she can’t get more, and which remedy is best for her. Our ultimate questions will be what courts are trying to accomplish with the remedies they offer and how the available remedies relate to the substantive rights that the law protects.

• Type: Upper Class

Rules of Play: Sports and Games as Legal Systems – This seminar will explore various rules and norms governing sports and related competitions, raising a rich array of interesting questions both for their own sake (as examples of quasi-legal systems) and for their usefulness as analogies to similar issues bedeviling the American legal system.
Examples of topics include:
(1) How should competition be structured? For example, what metrics should be used to determine a winner? How (if at all) should ties be broken? What standards should be used for eligibility and access (for example, in the case of transgendered and “bionic” athletes)?
(2) How should the bounds of acceptable conduct be determined? For example, when should deception or stalling be punished, and when should they be treated as acceptable parts of the game? How should misconduct be punished? What role if any should “ethics” or “morals” play beyond formal rules?
(3) What are appropriate remedies for official errors? When and how should official errors be appealable?
(4) When, and why, should sports competitions be governed or judged by strict rules versus open-ended standards?
Course requirements include regular attendance, a final paper, and periodic brief reaction-to-reading papers.

• Type: Seminar

This course covers the regulation of securities offerings and trading under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. It examines offerings and the registration process under the Securities Act, along with reporting requirements under the Exchange Act. The course will also cover fraud, insider trading and civil liabilities under both Acts.

• Type: Upper Class

In the Senior Judge Seminar students work closely with Legal Practice professors in connection with various aspects of the first-year Legal Practice course. Each Legal Practice professor interviews, chooses and supervises the Senior Judge Seminar students for the Legal Practice section taught by that professor.

• Type: Upper Class

The Senior Judge Seminar II is a graded course intended to allow selected students who have excelled in the Senior Judge I seminar to work in greater depth with a Legal Practice professor in connection with the Legal Practice course. Each Legal Practice professor interviews, chooses and supervises the Senior Judge Seminar II students for the Legal Practice section taught by the professor.

• Type: Upper Class

This seminar explores the jurisprudential, philosophical, and practical lessons that students of the law can draw from the life and works of William Shakespeare. We will consider some key characteristics of the law in Shakespeare’s time, how Shakespeare’s personal experiences shaped his understanding of the law, how our interpretation of Shakespeare’s work raises questions of originalism similar to those we encounter in the law, how his plays portray the law, lawyers, those who enforce the law, and those who sit in judgment, what his plays have to teach us about the art of persuasion and argument, what his plays tell us about individual responsibility within a social structure, how the plays explore the effect of mental illness on that responsibility, and how the plays help us think and talk about difficult issues like misogyny, racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism. Reading assignments in this course will be heavy and energetic engagement in classroom discussions will be expected. Students will be required to prepare four five-page papers in the course of the term. Final grades will be based on the quality of classroom discussion and the quality of the papers.

• Type: Seminar

South Africa Externship Seminar
This contemporaneous, one-credit seminar is held every Winter as a required companion to the South Africa Externship (Law 938). For more information, please visit the course description for Law 938.

• Type: Externship

Course description coming soon …

• Type: Practice Simulation

This seminar is designed for students with an interest in academic writing. Before the term begins each student must have previously written a draft of an academic paper that they would like to revise substantially in the course of the workshop, either for publication or for presentation on the academic job market. The first four or five sessions of the term will be devoted to reading articles written by young scholars who subsequently got academic jobs and discussing their strengths and weaknesses. The balance of the term will be devoted to presenting and critiquing the works in progress of the workshop students as the papers undergo revision. Students will be responsible not only for presenting and revising their own papers, but for commenting upon each other’s work. Each student paper will be presented twice over the course of the semester: first, by a student commentator, and second, following revision, by the student author. The workshop will meet once a week for a 2-hour session. Students interested in enrolling in the workshop should submit draft papers to Professor Eisenberg by email directed to [email protected].

• Type: Seminar

Substantive due process doctrine examines whether the government’s deprivation of a person’s life, liberty, or property is justified by a good enough reason. In this seminar, we’ll look at the doctrine’s background and incarnations over time, including the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. We’ll focus particularly on the “anti-canonical” cases (Lochner and Scott v. Sanford); sexual, reproductive, and marital autonomy; and the rights of individuals confined by the state.

• Type: Seminar

This is the basic course in federal income taxation. It is a statutory course, and the principal source of law will be the Internal Revenue Code. The topics covered will include the definition of gross income and the determination of permissible deductions from gross income. The class will also analyze numerous Code provisions and doctrines that raise issues of tax timing (that is, in what year should a given item of income or a given deduction be taken into account) and income attribution (that is, to whom should a given item of income or a given deduction be attributed). The bulk of the course will be devoted to learning basic statutory analysis. In addition, however, the class will spend some time studying the policy rationales underlying the structure of the current federal income tax laws and will consider the pros and cons of alternative systems. This course is a prerequisite to a number of other courses, including Corporate Taxation, Partnership Tax, Business and Estate Planning, and International Tax.

• Type: Upper Class

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 decarceration, the figure approaches 2 million (nearly two-thirds of whom are non-white), locked up in jails, state prisons, and federal prisons. This course will examine both constitutional law and statutory law relevant to their incarceration. The central topics are the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments and its Fourteenth Amendment analog, and Congress’s regulation of prison-related litigation in the Prison Litigation Reform Act. We’ll also examine First Amendment and related statutory rights behind bars, the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act within prisons and jails, solitary and supermax confinement, race discrimination inside jails and prison, and the law of injunctive relief in constitutional cases brought by incarcerated people. (We will not discuss criminal procedure, habeas corpus, or sentencing.) This course is for anyone interested in civil rights, criminal prosecution, or criminal defense.
A one-credit Colloquium will be open to anyone in the main class; it will include a jail visit plus five class meetings of 2 hours each. Colloquium students will be linked up to lawyers and advocacy organizations working on prison or jail litigation, and will assist them by performing legal research and writing.

• Type: Upper Class

For this one-credit add-on to The Law of Incarceration, students will be linked up to lawyers and advocacy organizations working on prison or jail litigation, and will assist them by performing necessary legal research and writing. Students who took The Law of Incarceration without the colloquium in a prior term are welcome to join the current colloquium.

• Type: Upper Class

This seminar examines the theoretical and philosophical foundations of criminal law. Specific topics will include acts and omissions, accomplice liability, attempt liability, justifications and excuses, sentencing, the justification of punishment, and the limits of the criminal law.

• Type: Seminar

Compensation at law for private wrongs and intentional wrongs as well as accidents, with principal emphasis on harms to person and property. Special areas such as product liability, defamation, or business torts will be treated selectively.

• Type: First Year Required

In this practice simulation course, students will begin to develop the skills needed to represent clients in business transactions. Among other things, the course covers translation of client business objectives into legal concepts and enforceable contract language that is clear, consistent, and concise. Students will learn how to analyze a contract from the client’s perspective, with an eye to advancing the client’s interests and protecting the client as much as possible from risk. The practice simulation course also identifies how attorneys can use drafting techniques and the negotiation process to resolve issues and improve outcomes for clients. Students will engage in simulations and exercises in class and undertake drafting assignments outside of class, including communications with clients and opposing counsel about contract terms, risks, and potential resolutions.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course explores a more diverse and deepened analysis of trial advocacy tied to the subject matter of the conflict and potential resolutions for that conflict. Students will learn basic tenants of all trial advocacy. These tenants include mechanics of pre- trial practice (motion practice including the differences between written and oral advocacy) as well as simulated trial tasks. Those trial tasks focus on the chronological development of a trial: jury selection; opening statement; direct and cross examination; exhibits; objections; impeachment and rehabilitation; experts and closing arguments.
As part of the analysis, students provide weekly written reflections on the oath of office all attorneys are required to make as a condition for the privilege to practice law. That reflection includes identification and discussion of core values and expectations that their advocacy choices reflect those values.
In lieu of a final exam, students will engage in a competition in conjunction with students from Wayne State Law School.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Hundreds of American Indian tribes operate their own justice systems. Their courts decide thousands of cases a year. Many span the full panoply of law—from criminal, civil, and probate cases, to divorce and environmental disputes. Tribal Law is a survey of the laws that tribes enact to govern themselves. It considers issues ranging from governance (elections, justice systems, and tribal constitutions), to conflicts between individuals (contracts, property, domestic relations, torts), to regulation of a tribal community’s economy.

• Type: Upper Class

The “origin story” of this course is a previously offered 2-credit hour course entitled “Startups & Venture Capital.” That course introduced students to the various legal and business considerations involved in the representation of startup companies and in structuring early-stage and venture capital financing transactions.
That course was structured such that the first half of the course covered “Startups,” and the second half of the course covered “Venture Capital.” We now have the opportunity to expand the scope and depth of the subject matter.
“Venture Capital” represents a full semester version of what was previously taught in half a semester. “Startups” is now offered separately, in the Fall, and similarly represents a full semester version of what was previously taught in half a semester. Each class can be taken independently, but the material does work well as a full-year integrated whole. Both classes, together, represent a 4-credit hour version (2 + 2) of what was previously limited to 2 credit hours.
This course — “Venture Capital” — covers the significant legal and business issues involved in financing startup companies. The initial focus is on angel investors, accelerators, and seed deals — growing and important elements of the startup ecosystem — with particular attention paid to the structure of those deals. After a unit on crowdfunding, the course dives deeply into the architecture and substance of classic venture capital preferred stock financings.
A knowledge of corporate and business associations law, as well as securities law and finance, will be helpful to a student in this course. That being said, there are no formal prerequisites, and the course is structured for beginners as well as for students with more subject matter expertise.

• Type: Upper Class

Water is arguably the world’s most precious resource, and learning water law is vital to understanding the present and future of water access. Generally, water law refers to the laws that govern ownership, access to, and management of water contained in rivers, lakes, and aquifers, as well as the land that immediately underlies those water resources.
Specifically, this class will cover: the distinction in surface water interests between the riparian doctrine in the wetter eastern United States and the prior appropriation doctrine in the more arid western United States; groundwater interests in shared aquifers; the public trust doctrine; water inequality; dams and watercourse management; takings claims; federal water interests; interstate compacts; Supreme Court original jurisdiction over interstate water disputes; water rights in Indian country; transnational management of shared surface waters and aquifers; and the common enemy doctrine governing water redirection. In the examination of those topics, we will consider relationships of water law to issues of development and economic policy.

• Type: Upper Class

The Zell Entrepreneurship Clinic (ZEC) supports the University’s burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem by representing student-led entrepreneurial ventures as well as local startups and small businesses. Student attorneys in the ZEC encounter real-world transactional lawyering experiences with a focus on developing a business-oriented, client-centered mindset.
The ZEC offers transactional and counseling legal services to startups and established small companies in the following areas:
* Selecting and forming a legal entity and structuring ownership and capital
* Counseling on and prosecuting intellectual property matters (e.g., copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret)
* Drafting and negotiating contracts
* Advising on employment matters
* Assisting on corporate fundraising and finance issues
Students in the ZEC typically represent multiple clients and assume primary responsibility for all client matters under the close supervision of ZEC faculty. Student attorneys plan client matters; interview and counsel clients; draft various legal agreements, documents, correspondence and memos; prosecute patent and trademark applications; and identify and research legal issues to help their clients implement their decisions. Student attorneys also take turns offering community office hours where they provide legal information to local entrepreneurs. Furthermore, student attorneys are exposed to the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem through attendance of local events as a class. During the weekly seminar sessions, students discuss lawyering skills and values, ethical issues, client issues and some substantive law. Student attorneys review and reflect on their work and receive detailed feedback from ZEC faculty during weekly supervision meetings.
There are no prerequisites for taking the ZEC. Because much of the client work will be in corporate, tax, intellectual property, employment, and other business areas, students will likely find prior course work in those areas helpful.

• Type: Clinic

In the 1L Advocacy Clinic, first-year law students, under the supervision of an experienced attorney, receive course credit to develop a wide variety of real-world advocacy skills, including investigation, interviewing, legal research and writing, and oral advocacy, while helping the community in significant and meaningful ways. The 1L Advocacy Clinic is the only clinic at the University of Michigan Law School — and among the only law clinics in the country — offering first-year law students the opportunity to handle cases.

Our students receive course credit to handle actual cases under the supervision of experienced attorneys. We provide not only a practical experience for students to develop real-world advocacy skills, but also an opportunity for them to engage their community in significant ways.

First-year students serve as guardians ad litem for children involved in custody matters before Michigan Circuit Court judges. Students investigate cases thoroughly, apply statutory criteria to formulate recommendations for the court, write and submit reports for the court, and defend those reports in live hearings.

• Type: Clinic

This course introduces the basic concepts and methods used in the preparation of the four corporate financial statements (the balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, and statement of stockholders’ equity). In this process, the course will also develop the accounting treatment of specific items such as long-term assets, inventory, sales, receivables, and debt securities. The course will use actual corporate financial statements of Fortune 500 companies and will provide students the tools necessary to understand such statements as well as some of the basic footnote disclosures associated with such statements.
Students who have substantial background in financial accounting or who have taken classes in financial accounting are ineligible to take or receive credit for this course for a grade. However, students who took only an introductory class in financial accounting a significant amount of time ago may request permission from the instructor to take the course for a grade.

• Type: Upper Class

This class will delve into narrative and storytelling as a method of persuasion. Drawing on the theory and science of narrative and persuasion, we will analyze examples from legal writing, fiction, and non-fiction sources. Students will develop the ability to identify the components of a compelling story, craft arguments that tell their client’s story for different audiences, integrate storytelling with traditional methods of legal argument, and recognize ethical considerations involved in using storytelling as a persuasive strategy. Students will draft multiple legal documents using the skills covered in the class.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This seminar will give students with an interest in copyright law an opportunity to explore fair use in greater depth. We will examine the history, public policy, and jurisprudence associated with one of the most flexible and contentious aspects of modern intellectual property law. In particular, we will look carefully at the cases and contexts that shape the fair use legal landscape, as well as how the interests of stakeholders may influence the way courts think about and apply the section 107 factors. We will explore the current contours of the rights and doctrines associated with fair use and consider how they might evolve going forward. We will consider not only law and policy, but practical issues related to legal practice in this area. Students will write short weekly essays, and a research paper on a fair use topic of their choice.

• Type: Seminar

Students are enrolled by invitation only, after having expressed interest to one of the experiential education faculty or administrators. Students will receive between 2 to 5 credits, to be determined by the faculty member and students.

• Type: Externship