Course Catalog

This is a clinical course in which each student is assigned to help represent an indigent defendant in the appeal of his or her felony conviction, under the supervision of attorneys from Michigan's State Appellate Defender Office. The focus of the course is on the completion of an effectively written appellate brief on behalf of the client, to be filed in state or federal court. The goal of the course is to develop the student's understanding and skill in all phases of appellate advocacy. The student will review the trial transcripts and lower court records, interview the client in prison (with the instructor), develop a strategy for appeal, conduct legal research, and help draft the client's brief on appeal. Feedback is provided by frequent individual meetings with the instructors, as well as oral argument before a panel of attorneys experienced in criminal law. The course gives the student the opportunity to work on a real case with real consequences for the client. While most directly relevant to those interested in criminal law, its lessons in appellate advocacy should be of general interest. Class size is limited to 12 students to assure individual attention to each student.
The Clinic is a 4 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 3 credit clinic and the 1 credit field component, taken concurrently. The 3 credit clinic and 1 credit field component 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.
For students who matriculated in or after May 2016, the Clinic can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, fulfill the upper-level writing requirement, or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement -- it cannot be used to fulfill more than one of these three particular requirements.

• Type: Clinic

This is a clinical course in which each student is assigned to help represent an indigent defendant in the appeal of his or her felony conviction, under the supervision of attorneys from Michigan's State Appellate Defender Office. The focus of the course is on the completion of an effecitvely written appellate brief on behalf of the client, to be filed in state or federal court. The goal of the course is to develop the student's understanding and skill in all phases of appellate advocacy. The student will review the trial transcripts and lower court records, interview the client in prison (with the instructor), develop a strategy for appeal, conduct legal research, and help draft the client's brief on appeal. Feedback is provided by frequent individual meetings with the instructors, as well as oral argument before a panel of attorneys experienced in criminal law. The course gives the student the opportunity to work on a real case with real consequences for the client. While most directly relevant to those interested in criminal law, its lessons in appellate advocacy should be of general interest. Class size is limited to 12 students to assure individual attention to each student.
The Clinic is a 4 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 3 credit clinic and the 1 credit field component, taken concurrently. The 3 credit clinic and 1 credit field component 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.
For students who matriculated in or after May 2016, the Clinic can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, fulfill the upper-level writing requirement, or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement -- it cannot be used to fulfill more than one of these three particular requirements.

• 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

This course examines the application of legal principles as a limitation on the definition of crime; the theories underlying criminal law; and the problems of the imposition and execution of sentences. Also examined are various specific areas of substantive criminal law, including: (1) general principles applicable to all crimes, e.g., mistake, causation, legal insanity, intoxication, and rules of justification and excuse; (2) accountability for the acts of others; and (3) attempt and conspiracy.

• Type: First Year Required

An analysis of the legal and practical problems presented in the administration of criminal justice from the point of bail to post conviction review. Subjects include: prosecutor's discretion, preliminary examination, grand jury operations, discovery, joinder and severance of parties and offenses, plea negotiations, acceptance of guilty pleas, selection and role of the jury in criminal trials, selected trial problems, sentencing, appellate and habeas corpus review, and professional responsibilities of the prosecutor and defense attorney.

• Type: Upper Class

Over the last few years interest in cryptoassets, or more broadly digital assets, has skyrocketed. This has raised many critical legal and regulatory issues related to the emerging cryptoeconomy and its regulation and how that impacts the global growth of "Web3." This course explores the business and regulatory issues associated with the growth of cryptoassets. We begin with a discussion of what cryptoassets or digital assets are and how they rely on blockchain technology. We will discuss some of the most common types of cryptoassets (e.g., cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, utility tokens, and those that operate by "smart contracts") and how interest in using them, and in trading them, has grown geometrically over the last few years. We then turn to a series of regulatory issues surrounding the rise of the cryptoeconomy. This will include laws related to trading digital assets, policing their effects on customers and investors (e.g., fraud), money laundering and banking concerns, potential national security considerations, data privacy and cybersecurity, and a host of other issues. We discuss how the cryptoeconomy is different in important ways for regulatory purposes and address some of the emerging global political economy questions that are on the near horizon. There are no pre-requisites for this seminar and the grade for the seminar is based on actively participating in class sessions and submitting five (5) reaction papers to the readings. There are thirteen sessions and students can pick the 5 sessions for which they wish to write reactions papers. Each paper should be five (5) double spaced pages long. With the permission of the instructor students may write a paper in lieu of the reaction memos.

• Type: Seminar

From near limitless data collection to state-sponsored cyberattacks, cybersecurity affects us all. Cybersecurity addresses how individuals, companies, and governments attack and defend from each other in cyberspace, using digital devices and networks. This course addresses the wide range of legal (U.S. and international law) and policy issues associated with the rapidly evolving world of cybersecurity. Intended as an introduction to the topic, this course will begin with a brief overview of the internet and the cyber spectrum, from surveillance through destructive attacks. We will then cover the legal and policy dimensions around defensive and offensive cybersecurity. Topics include incident disclosure, data breaches, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, cyber espionage, election interference, and cyberattacks. No technical knowledge is needed.

• Type: Upper Class

Digital Lawyering: Advocacy in the Age of AI
All lawyers are now digital lawyers. From Zoom hearings, to e-discovery, to AI-enhanced research and writing, the practice of law increasingly requires the skillful navigation of a wide range of technological tools. It's no longer enough to be book smart and street smart. More and more, you also have to be byte-smart.
This course is designed to help you navigate that transition. It takes a skill-building approach to advocacy in the age of artificial intelligence. Which tools are worth using? What questions are worth asking? And how do lawyers of all kinds continue to add value to clients in a world where competition for legal services comes from chatbots, algorithms, and a growing number of other powerful digital products?

• Type: Practice Simulation

Economic analysis is one of the major theoretical approaches to the study of law. Broadly speaking, economics as a discipline seeks to understand decision-making and choice, often under uncertainty and in the face of various real-world constraints. Economic analysis of law focuses on how law and legal rules affect (a) the behavior of individuals and firms, (b) the allocation of risk across individuals, and (c) the distribution of resources in society. This introductory course covers the basic concepts of law and economics, including the Coase Theorem, the difference between property rules and liability rules, the allocative effects of alternative tort rules (e.g., strict liability versus negligence), the design of efficient contract damages, the role of insurance, as well as the economics of criminal law. This course will focus on developing basic intuitions, and it will do this by applying economic ideas to realistic legal scenarios and problems. Problem solving helps to solidify understanding. By the end of the course, students will appreciate the complex range of economic considerations swirling around legal practice and law design. Students will develop the ability to apply economic principles to legal questions in many areas of law, both to predict the effects of alternative legal rules and to identify what rules would be "optimal" in particular contexts. Students will also develop the ability to offer forceful critiques of economic arguments as applied to the law, to identify the underlying assumptions and spot flaws in the reasoning. No prior knowledge of economics is assumed. Furthermore, grasping the power of economic thinking and its relevance to law and policy does not require a technical background. Still, there are enough moving parts, and trade-offs, that sometimes writing ideas down as simple equations and using straightforward examples helps to develop intuition and facility with the concepts.

• Type: Upper Class

This course is an introduction to U.S. energy law. The first portion of the course introduces the nation's sources of energy: coal, oil, biofuels, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal energy, and energy efficiency. In doing so, it explores the physical, market, and legal structures within which these energy sources are extracted, transported, and converted into energy. The second portion of the course turns to the two major sectors of our energy economy -- electricity and transportation -- and the full range of federal and state regulation of each sector. The third portion of the course explores case studies of hot topics in energy law and policy that highlight the complex transitions taking place in the energy system. These topics may include electric grid modernization, electric vehicles, the role of energy innovation in addressing climate change, and the continued role of nuclear energy. In addition to traditional textbook reading and class discussion, the course may include industry, government, and nonprofit guest speaker presentations.

• Type: Upper Class

Enterprise Organization introduces the law governing the organization of business entities, including agency, partnership, limited liability companies, and corporations, including closely-held corporations. It provides a general introduction to business organizations for students who intend to pursue a wide variety of careers, not just corporate law. The duties of agents to their principals, partners to their co-partners, and directors and officers to their corporations and shareholders are covered. Some sections may cover mergers and acquisitions as well. This course (or Corporate Lawyer: Law & Ethics) is either a prerequisite or provides an important foundation for a number of advanced corporate law classes. (Please check the footnotes for each class about information about pre-requisites.) Students may not take both Enterprise Organization and Corporate Lawyer: Law & Ethics for credit.

• Type: Upper Class

This course will explore the intersection of rights of publicity, trademark, copyright, contract, culture, technology, the "law of ideas," Free Speech, and privacy in the entertainment industries. We will focus on music, film, literature, television, and social media. Through the lenses of negotiation and litigation, we will examine the roles of those who create, collaborate, perform, disseminate, promote, merchandise, and financially support creative properties and celebrities.

• 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

Every day with regard to the environment, decisions are made and actions are taken that disproportionately impact people of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor. Can we ever achieve environmental justice through the law?
This course examines whether and how our legal system can address environmental racism and other forms of environmental injustice. After covering the history of the environmental justice movement as both a social and legal phenomenon, we will explore and assess the legal frameworks available to address environmental injustice. With regard to legal frameworks, we will spend most of our time on tort, civil rights, environmental-administrative, and land use & zoning. The environmental administrative framework will include pollution control laws (e.g. Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act), utility rate-setting, management of natural resources & public lands, and climate change. Apart from traditional legal materials, we will also read social science & public health scholarship, newspaper articles, history, philosophy, and literature.

• Type: Seminar

This course provides an introduction to the laws and regulations we use to address environmental harms. It focuses on the major pollution control statutes, particularly the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Recovery Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act. We will also examine the role of the courts in interpreting these statutes as well as the underlying scientific, economic, and policy rationales for environmental protection. Recurring themes will include the balance of federal and state authority, the influence of interest groups (both industry and environmental organizations) on environmental policy, and the disparate impact of pollution on vulnerable populations. The course will also cover recent developments in administrative and constitutional law that have significant implications for environmental regulation, such as the major questions and non-delegation doctrines.

• Type: Upper Class

The Clinic offers students the opportunity to learn to be effective advocates while representing the National Wildlife Federation. NWF pursues its mission to conserve wildlife in administrative, judicial, and legislative forums, and through a wide range of educational programs and publications. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. Clinical work will teach students the mechanics of litigation, primarily in state or federal appellate venues, as well as pertinent environmental laws and administrative law. Students will also practice investigative, research, and writing skills. Class work will introduce students to principles and techniques relevant to the clinical work, and may include such subjects as drafting pleadings and motions; oral argument; and negotiation. The Clinic is a graded seven-credit-hour offering. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. Credits count toward New York's pro bono requirement. Courses in administrative and environmental law are not prerequisites, but would be helpful.
The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

The Clinic offers students the opportunity to learn to be effective advocates while representing the National Wildlife Federation. NWF pursues its mission to conserve wildlife in administrative, judicial, and legislative forums, and through a wide range of educational programs and publications. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. Clinical work will teach students the mechanics of litigation, primarily in state or federal appellate venues, as well as pertinent environmental laws and administrative law. Students will also practice investigative, research, and writing skills. Class work will introduce students to principles and techniques relevant to the clinical work, and may include such subjects as drafting pleadings and motions; oral argument; and negotiation. The Clinic is a graded seven-credit-hour offering. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. Credits count toward New York's pro bono requirement. Courses in administrative and environmental law are not prerequisites, but would be helpful.
The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

This course focuses on the procedural rules that regulate the use of evidence at trial. The rules covered include those relating to the competence of witnesses, the mode of examination, relevance, impeachment, character evidence, hearsay, expert evidence, privileges, and judicial notice. Particular attention is paid to the Federal Rules of Evidence.

• Type: Upper Class

The course will focus on the effective and strategic use of the Rules of Evidence in litigation. We will look in-depth at several critical areas of evidence, including impeachment, hearsay, expert testimony and privileges. Our study will include both drafting exercises (motions to admit or exclude various pieces of evidence) as well as courtroom based scenarios in which students will have to dissect and apply the various Rules. The goal of the course is for students to have a functional mastery of several critical (and challenging) areas of evidence, preparing them for future work as litigators.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course will provide an overview of family law practice including divorce, custody, child support, and parenting time. It will address legal challenges for LGBTQA families, domestic violence, and common ethical issues in the practice of family law. We will examine dispute resolution methods, and private family law agreements (prenuptial and settlement agreements). The course will include several practice based exercises throughout the semester, and one court observation.

• Type: Upper Class

This course will examine laws administered by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration with a focus on the regulation of drug development and drug sales. Topics to be covered include the new drug approval process, regulatory obstacles to generic drug competition, regulatory sources of exclusivity in drug markets including the Orphan Drug Act and the Hatch-Waxman Act, reimportation of approved drugs from abroad, internet drug sales, prescription versus over-the-counter drug sales, and regulation of advertising claims made to physicians and consumers. We will also consider the relationship between drug regulation and other laws, including patent, antitrust and tort laws. Time permitting, we will examine recent state legislative measures designed to reduce the costs of new drugs.

• Type: Upper Class

National antitrust policy under the Sherman, Federal Trade Commission, and Clayton Acts. Restraints of trade and monopoly problems including agreements among competitors (such as price-fixing, trade associations, and joint ventures), vertical relationships (such as resale price maintenance and exclusive territories), single firm exclusionary conduct (such as predatory pricing and predatory product innovation), and merger policy. Students do not need to have any prior economic training, but should be prepared to learn some basic industrial organizational theory and microeconomics. Current debates in the field at the level of both theory and policy will be explored.

• Type: Upper Class

Students who have taken Federal Appellate Litigation Clinic I are eligible to enroll in Federal Appellate Litigation Clinic II by invitation of the professors. Faculty and invited students determine the number of credits (3-5) to be awarded.

• 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

The ability to give and receive quality feedback plays a major role in every lawyer's career trajectory. Yet few of us are ever taught how to develop this important skill.
"Feedback Loops" is designed to help change that. We'll learn better ways to deliver feedback, better ways to receive feedback, and better ways to solicit feedback. We'll also get to practice a crucial and often overlooked kind of feedback: self-feedback.

• Type: Practice Simulation

From fingerprints to burn marks, shoe prints to bite-marks, and dozens of other disciplines, our courts certainly have a lot of forensic science thrown at them on a daily basis. But how equipped is our legal system to properly handle scientific evidence? And what about individual lawyers and judges: can they be trusted to properly vet, scrutinize--and when necessary, exclude--forensic science disciplines they scarcely understand?
This course will explore the tenuous but necessary relationship between forensic science and the law, which begins with the fundamental difference between ?truth? as defined by science and as defined by law. From that foundation, we will consider how various forensic techniques have come to be accepted, admitted--and in many cases later repudiated--by our judicial system. We will study what goes right, what goes wrong and how we as lawyers can work to improve the system of forensic science in America.

• Type: Seminar

This course examines the early history of the English Common Law and explores various approaches to legal history. We will study both medieval documents and key works of modern historical writing in order to obtain an overall picture of the chronology, processes, and causes of legal development. Following an introduction to the history of the period (no prior study of history is required) and to the use of historical sources, a combination of chronological and thematic approaches will be adopted. Key issues will be the role of royal authority in legal development; the impact of changes in literacy; changes in the nature of legal knowledge and thought; the separation of legal from other social norms; the degree to which legal change works by its own internal logic.

• Type: Upper Class

The Full-Time Externship Program offers an exciting opportunity to augment classroom study with real-world work experience. Students (under the guidance of both a Law School faculty member and a field placement site supervisor) immerse themselves full-time in legal work with local, state, and federal governmental agencies, and with nonprofit organizations located throughout the country and world. The externship is expected the complete the student's personal agenda of study, complementing courses carefully chosen at the Law School and enabling the student to pursue sophisticated work and research in a particular field beyond our curricular offerings.

Students will receive twelve credits total, eleven for the field work portion and one for the accompanying seminar (Law 941). Since field placement proposals must be approved in advance, EVEN IF A STUDENT DOES NOT HAVE A PLACEMENT FINALIZED, the student must apply for a Full-Time Externship by the deadline, which is April 1 for a Fall Externship, and November 1 for a Winter Externship. If a student's placement is not secured, the student is welcome, even encouraged, to propose a few potential placements for consideration.

For more information, visit our website at https://michigan.law.umich.edu/academics/experiential-learning/externships or contact lawexternships@umich.edu. We are happy to meet with students to answer questions, give guidance on potential placements, provide information on how to apply, etc. Please note that if students are interested in the Geneva, India, or South Africa Externship Programs, they should visit the websites for each of those programs separately, as their details and deadlines are different.

• Type: Externship

This contemporaneous, one-credit seminar is held every semester as a required companion to the Full-Time Externship (Law 940). For more information, please visit the course description for Law 940.

• Type: Externship

Spend a semester in Geneva working with leading intergovernmental and nongovernmental institutions during the winter term. Students are immersed in the work of these international institutions and closely supervised by their legal staffs to explore how international legal regimes intersect with such diverse fields as trade, human rights, intellectual property, environment, telecommunications, and health. Externs participate in a contemporaneous seminar intended to provide them substantive context for their externships.
Students apply in the Winter before the program begins the following January. For more information, visit our website at https://www.law.umich.edu/curriculum/externshipsandindependentstudy/Pages/default.aspx or contact lawexternships@umich.edu. We are happy to meet with students to answer questions, give guidance on potential placements, provide information on how to apply, etc. Further, every January we hold an informational meeting for all of our international externship programs, so please watch for that announcement.

• Type: Externship

This contemporaneous seminar is intended to provide substantive context for the Geneva Externship field work (Law 947). It provides an environment for students to share their work experiences and reflect on the varying approaches to international problem-solving arising at the organizations where they are placed. In addition, students will attend guest lectures with legal and policy advisors at international and nongovernmental organizations, who will discuss current issues of international law, describe the role of international organizations in various fields of international law, and describe their individual career paths.
Students apply in the Winter before the program begins the following January. For more information, visit our website at https://www.law.umich.edu/curriculum/externshipsandindependentstudy/Pages/default.aspx or contact lawexternships@umich.edu. We are happy to meet with students to answer questions, give guidance on potential placements, provide information on how to apply, etc. Further, every January we hold an informational meeting for all of our international externship programs, so please watch for that announcement.

• Type: Externship

This seminar has two main aims: 1) to provide the occasion to read some terrific literature; and 2) to use that literature as a lens through which to explore questions of enduring significance to us as lawyers and as human beings. No special background is necessary. We will read some excellent Ancient Greek literature in translation -- including selections from Sappho, Sophocles, Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, and Thucydides. See the preliminary syllabus [link in FN, below] for the tentative reading list. In addition to the reading assignments, there will be discussion assignments. You will submit or be ready to discuss your thoughts on a set of questions potentially illuminated by the reading.

• Type: Seminar

This course will examine the issues and concerns that are unique to well-funded ventures with "unicorn" valuations. The course will consider the pros and cons of different late-stage investment structures, the deal dynamics arising from the ever expanding pool of capital investing in this asset class, and the implications of unit economics for the investment thesis--all against the backdrop of the ever-blurring line between private equity and venture capital.
Students will learn the primary legal mechanics involved in venture capital investing, as well as the incentives and pragmatic considerations underlying these types of transactions.
Students will be expected to participate in a simulated term-sheet negotiation exercise, become familiar with spreadsheet capitalization tables, and learn to evaluate key deal terms against the backdrop of the broader deal dynamics.
Required readings for each session will include model deal documents and case studies.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course serves as an introduction to: (1) the major areas of law governing the health care sector malpractice, licensing, credentialing, problems of patient rights, and professional prerogatives; (2) the organization of the health care sector and how major institutions within it function (hospitals, licensing and accrediting bodies, professional associations, health maintenance organizations, etc.); and (3) the tension between legal, scientific, and clinical styles of thinking, all of which come to bear on subjects such as malpractice liability, right to die, and admissions to hospital staff privileges.

• Type: Upper Class

The Human Trafficking Clinic + Lab is a social justice innovation space where multidisciplinary student teams use design thinking to research, incubate, and build replicable, scalable, and disruptive solutions to reduce vulnerability to trafficking. Graduate students from across UM will work to fight exploitation at individual, organizational, and systemic levels. For over a decade, the Clinic relied solely on legal tools and direct representation to fight human trafficking. The Lab, launched in 2022, allows us to build on direct representation to change exploitative systems. It endeavors to create change at policy, service, and industry levels through collaborative partnerships across the nonprofit, corporate, and governmental sectors. We believe the law is an incomplete, imperfect solution to reducing exploitation and that interdisciplinary, cross-industry collaboration is necessary. Our vision for the Clinic + Lab partnership is that the work with individual survivors in the Clinic will help ensure the Lab is victim-centered and informed by lived-experience.
The Clinic + Lab provides a range of services, including direct representation of both U.S. citizen and foreign national trafficking victims, corporate governance compliance and advising, and grand-scale problem-solving design work centered around reducing vulnerability to trafficking. Students will collaborate with a variety of stakeholders, including survivors of human trafficking, law enforcement, government officials, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations to identify solutions to combat vulnerability to trafficking.
All law students will be enrolled in the Clinic + Lab and will engage in a combination of legal and systemic reform work. The legal work of the Clinic + Lab will be a mix of direct representation and corporate compliance and governance. Our direct service work is best described as a poverty law practice on behalf of survivors of human trafficking and their families. It includes immigration, post-adjudication criminal relief, access to public benefits, expungement, and victim-witness advocacy. Other legal work will include how companies are assessing, preventing, and remediating the use of forced labor in their supply chains, as well as how outside groups are pressuring them to do so if they are not.
In the systems-level problem-solving and reform work of the Clinic + Lab, law students will be joined by graduate students from multiple disciplines to identify and create solutions to reduce vulnerability to exploitation. Such projects may include increasing access to expungement, combating misinformation in anti-trafficking narratives, and exploring the role of discretion in the legal process. Our focus for Fall 2023 will be reducing vulnerability to trafficking in supply chains. In November 2022, the U.S. government found that over half of the sugar produced in the Dominican Republic resulted from forced labor. Actions to address this exploitation must be taken. The Lab, along with a coalition of NGOs, is working to respond to these findings to create long-term worker-led oversight of this supply chain to reduce labor trafficking.
In the Fall 2022-Winter 2023 year, more than 50 students from 11 of UM's graduate programs joined the Lab in our fight against vulnerability to human trafficking.
This work is not done in a vacuum. The Lab is committed to connecting and engaging with stakeholders in a supportive, non-extractive, and sustainable manner that neither taxes nor burdens their resources. Our projects are not limited by the semester framework, as we pass them from student team to student team until they reach actualization and implementation. Therefore, our stakeholders can trust that their contributions and partnerships will not fall by the wayside when the semester ends.
In the Clinic + Lab students will learn and practice collaboration, problem solving, fact investigation, legal analysis, counseling, and advocacy skills. Students are responsible, under supervision, for all of the cases and projects within the Clinic + Lab.
The Clinic + Lab is a 7 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 4 credit Clinic + Lab and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently.

• Type: Clinic

The Human Trafficking Clinic + Lab is a social justice innovation space where multidisciplinary student teams use design thinking to research, incubate, and build replicable, scalable, and disruptive solutions to reduce vulnerability to trafficking. Graduate students from across UM will work to fight exploitation at individual, organizational, and systemic levels. For over a decade, the Clinic relied solely on legal tools and direct representation to fight human trafficking. The Lab, launched in 2022, allows us to build on direct representation to change exploitative systems. It endeavors to create change at policy, service, and industry levels through collaborative partnerships across the nonprofit, corporate, and governmental sectors. We believe the law is an incomplete, imperfect solution to reducing exploitation and that interdisciplinary, cross-industry collaboration is necessary. Our vision for the Clinic + Lab partnership is that the work with individual survivors in the Clinic will help ensure the Lab is victim-centered and informed by lived-experience.
The Clinic + Lab provides a range of services, including direct representation of both U.S. citizen and foreign national trafficking victims, corporate governance compliance and advising, and grand-scale problem-solving design work centered around reducing vulnerability to trafficking. Students will collaborate with a variety of stakeholders, including survivors of human trafficking, law enforcement, government officials, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations to identify solutions to combat vulnerability to trafficking.
All law students will be enrolled in the Clinic + Lab and will engage in a combination of legal and systemic reform work. The legal work of the Clinic + Lab will be a mix of direct representation and corporate compliance and governance. Our direct service work is best described as a poverty law practice on behalf of survivors of human trafficking and their families. It includes immigration, post-adjudication criminal relief, access to public benefits, expungement, and victim-witness advocacy. Other legal work will include how companies are assessing, preventing, and remediating the use of forced labor in their supply chains, as well as how outside groups are pressuring them to do so if they are not.
In the systems-level problem-solving and reform work of the Clinic + Lab, law students will be joined by graduate students from multiple disciplines to identify and create solutions to reduce vulnerability to exploitation. Such projects may include increasing access to expungement, combating misinformation in anti-trafficking narratives, and exploring the role of discretion in the legal process. Our focus for Fall 2023 will be reducing vulnerability to trafficking in supply chains. In November 2022, the U.S. government found that over half of the sugar produced in the Dominican Republic resulted from forced labor. Actions to address this exploitation must be taken. The Lab, along with a coalition of NGOs, is working to respond to these findings to create long-term worker-led oversight of this supply chain to reduce labor trafficking.
In the Fall 2022-Winter 2023 year, more than 50 students from 11 of UM's graduate programs joined the Lab in our fight against vulnerability to human trafficking.
This work is not done in a vacuum. The Lab is committed to connecting and engaging with stakeholders in a supportive, non-extractive, and sustainable manner that neither taxes nor burdens their resources. Our projects are not limited by the semester framework, as we pass them from student team to student team until they reach actualization and implementation. Therefore, our stakeholders can trust that their contributions and partnerships will not fall by the wayside when the semester ends.
In the Clinic + Lab students will learn and practice collaboration, problem solving, fact investigation, legal analysis, counseling, and advocacy skills. Students are responsible, under supervision, for all of the cases and projects within the Clinic + Lab.
The Clinic + Lab is a 7 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 4 credit Clinic + Lab and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently.

• Type: Clinic

This course will explore the legal, historical and policy perspectives that shape U.S. law governing immigration and citizenship. The course provides a general overview of the constitutional and international law foundations underlying immigration regulation, the history of immigration law in the U.S., the source and scope of congressional and executive branch power in the realm of immigration, and the role of the judiciary in making and interpreting immigration law. The course will closely examine the admission, exclusion, removal and naturalization of noncitizens in the United States.

• 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

The India Externship offers students the chance to spend the Winter semester working for an Indian non-profit, government agency, or court in the city of your choice. Students work with our administration and faculty to find a suitable placement. Given the depth and breadth of work available in India, it should not be difficult to find something that meets your interests. Past students report rich experiences working side-by-side with top-notch Indian lawyers on pressing legal matters and policy issues.

Students apply in the Winter before the program begins the following January. For more information, visit our website at https://michigan.law.umich.edu/resource-center/india-externship or contact lawexternships@umich.edu. We are happy to meet with students to answer questions, give guidance on potential placements, provide information on how to apply, etc. Further, every January we hold an informational meeting for all of our international externship programs, so please watch for that announcement.

• Type: Externship

The INHR Geneva Student Legal Advisor Program is an externship opportunity in public international law for selected LLM and JD students, with a possible "Spring Break" visit to Geneva Switzerland for the February/March UN Human Rights Council. Selected students will work with a Michigan law grad and former U.S. diplomat to serve as virtual interns for a member state to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Students will be paired with a small UN member state that lacks resources to have legal support for their delegation to the UN Human Rights Council. The students will provide legal, policy and administrative support to that government to facilitate its participation in the UN Human Rights Council and possible other UN agencies in Geneva.
During the fall semester, students will be required to join a weekly 90-minute online class with students from other law schools. The live online course will provide an overview of relevant UN and international human rights law and procedures; tradecraft skills in drafting, research and negotiation; and otherwise lay the foundation to prepare students to serve in their virtual internship. In the winter term, students will be expected to review draft resolutions, conduct research and produce interventions for their employer/member state UN delegation to use and deliver during the January Universal Periodic Review and March UN Human Rights Council (HRC) sessions and related meetings. Further details on the INHR Virtual Internship Program expectations, and the type of developing country delegations whom students may work for is available at https://inhr.org/student-legal-advisors.
Past students have traveled to Geneva for a week-long, self-funded, first-hand glimpse at providing diplomatic and legal work at the UN Human Rights Council. The HRC session each March usually aligns with Michigan Law's spring break and the HRC Universal Periodic Review session in May often occurs immediately after Michigan Law's exam period. Travel to Geneva and living expenses are not funded by INHR and travel cannot be guaranteed given past challenges provided by COVID-19, issues regarding receipt of a visa to Switzerland and demands of the employing delegation. Applicants interested in the Spring Break or May visit MUST be eligible for visa-free entry to Switzerland.
How to Apply:
To apply for the two-semester student legal advisor program, please complete this form (https://forms.gle/HsK79eKe8XBj2mSf7) by July 10th, 2023. Your application should include a copy of your transcript, resume, passport cover page, and a cover letter explaining your interest. Students selected for an interview will be contacted during the week of July 24th by Alissa Cammarata (camma@umich.edu) Administrative Assistant for Experiential Education to set up a Zoom interview with INHR program director Eric Richardson for late July or early August. If you have any questions about the application process please contact Alissa (camma@umich.edu).
Those who pass the interview will be notified of their acceptance into the program by August 14, 2023. Delegations will be assigned around the end of October and student interests in particular regions, issues, and language skills are taken into account in pairing with an employer-delegation but cannot be guaranteed.
How Credits Will Be Determined:
Student participants are enrolling in a two-semester class/externship combined experience and are expected to participate for the entire school year. One credit will be given each semester, which will cover class time and preparation/assignments for the class (including practice research projects, sample interventions, negotiations and a final project of up to 10 pages that deploys the student's negotiation and resolution drafting skills).
Because the amount of work facing students in the second semester may vary depending on the demands of the particular delegation/Ambassador, an additional one or two credits may be authorized in the winter semester. Students seeking additional credit units will be evaluated based on a timesheet logging hours spent on behalf of their delegation to track hours over and above a baseline expectation that all students will provide at least 20 hours of work requested by their delegations in the second semester. Under the ABA standard for externships, if more than 42.5 additional hours are requested and logged (total of 62.5 hours including the baseline 20 hours), the student may receive a third credit and if more than 85 additional hours are logged (total of 105 hours), a fourth credit may be awarded (four credits is the maximum possible). Because the volume of work requested by an Ambassador/delegation depends on a range of factors and is impossible to predict, students should not count on receiving more than the baseline total of two credits for the combined two-semester seminar/virtual externship experience.

• Type: Externship