Course Catalog

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

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 course includes a thorough examination of the legal framework--constitutional, statutory, and common law--that empowers and constrains a wide range of federal administrative agencies. We will also look at the ways agencies themselves make law through rulemaking and adjudicate cases, and cover a range of other topics, including agency due process, adjudication in agencies, limitations on judicial review, standing, and finality. We will also engage issues of current concern, including presidential control of agencies and so-called e-government. This course is for students who have not taken Law 569, Legislation and Regulation.

• 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

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

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

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

This graded course gives a select group of students who have excelled in a Problem Solving Initiative (PSI) class the chance to spend another semester, under faculty supervision, working on the subject matter of that PSI class. The course is designed to give students a more in-depth problem solving experience at a higher level of sophistication than may have been possible during their original PSI classes. Students may only enroll following PSI faculty invitation. Faculty and invited students determine the number of credits to be awarded.

• Type: Problem Solving Initiative

This graded course gives a select group of students who have excelled in a Problem Solving Initiative (PSI) class the chance to spend another semester, under faculty supervision, working on the subject matter of that PSI class. The course is designed to give students a more in-depth problem solving experience at a higher level of sophistication than may have been possible during their original PSI classes. Students may only enroll following PSI faculty invitation. Faculty and invited students determine the number of credits to be awarded.

• Type: Problem Solving Initiative

This graded course gives a select group of students who have excelled in a Problem Solving Initiative (PSI) class the chance to spend another semester, under faculty supervision, working on the subject matter of that PSI class. The course is designed to give students a more in-depth problem solving experience at a higher level of sophistication than may have been possible during their original PSI classes. Students may only enroll following PSI faculty invitation. Faculty and invited students determine the number of credits to be awarded.

• Type: Problem Solving Initiative

This course is designed to teach all students, however they plan to use their law school education, the skills necessary to creatively solve problems in whatever professional context they might arise. We use the classic James Harr's A Civil Action (Vintage 1996) to teach the interpersonal, communication and analytical skills lawyers need to become successful problem solvers. This story demonstrates how Jan Schlichtmann could have achieved a more successful outcome for his clients if only he had applied these basic skills in that case. With this foundation, we develop an understanding of problem- solving methodology and the use of negotiation and mediation, two of the primary ADR processes for solving problems. Experiential learning is the fundamental teaching method. Students will learn to apply negotiation and mediation theory in simulated exercises with students playing the roles of negotiator, mediator, advocate and client in these simulations. Students receive feedback on their performance based on in-class faculty observation as well a post-exercise class discussion. Arbitration is the third process within the ADR constellation. We begin with a discussion of ad how to determine whether arbitration is an appropriate process for solving a client's problem. Then, we focus on the legal infrastructure of arbitration, the Federal Arbitration Act and recent cases that have shaped the current arbitration legal landscape. We also discuss legislative efforts to address issues of fairness in arbitration, particularly focusing on mandatory class action waivers and their impact on consumers and employees. The course concludes with a discussion of other creative ways to resolve disputes, including the use of the apology and its use at the University of Michigan Hospital to address claims of medical malpractice.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course is designed to teach all students, however they plan to use their law school education, the skills necessary to creatively solve problems in whatever professional context they might arise. We use the classic James Harr's A Civil Action (Vintage 1996) to teach the interpersonal, communication and analytical skills lawyers need to become successful problem solvers. This story demonstrates how Jan Schlichtmann could have achieved a more successful outcome for his clients if only he had applied these basic skills in that case. With this foundation, we develop an understanding of problem- solving methodology and the use of negotiation and mediation, two of the primary ADR processes for solving problems. Experiential learning is the fundamental teaching method. Students will learn to apply negotiation and mediation theory in simulated exercises with students playing the roles of negotiator, mediator, advocate and client in these simulations. Students receive feedback on their performance based on in-class faculty observation as well a post-exercise class discussion. Arbitration is the third process within the ADR constellation. We begin with a discussion of ad how to determine whether arbitration is an appropriate process for solving a client's problem. Then, we focus on the legal infrastructure of arbitration, the Federal Arbitration Act and recent cases that have shaped the current arbitration legal landscape. We also discuss legislative efforts to address issues of fairness in arbitration, particularly focusing on mandatory class action waivers and their impact on consumers and employees. The course concludes with a discussion of other creative ways to resolve disputes, including the use of the apology and its use at the University of Michigan Hospital to address claims of medical malpractice.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This simulation course is a practicum, taught by a veteran federal court, state court and arbitration tribunal trial lawyer, which will take students from the initial drafting of a complaint and answer in a hypothetical commercial case through trial, jury verdict and post-judgment motions. Students, working together both individually and as teams, will strategize the complaint allegations to be filed and the responses to those allegations; will draft pleadings and papers in pursuance of the claims and defenses; will file dispositive motions; will conduct written discovery and depositions; will participate in a pretrial conference; will file and respond to dispositive motions; will attend a pretrial conference and a settlement conference; and will then prepare for and participate in trial, including presentation of voir dire questions and peremptory challenges, opening and closing statements, direct examination and cross-examination, evidentiary objections and responses thereto and motions for directed verdict and responses thereto at the close of proofs. While the course will have some theoretical discussion about the art of persuasion, the primary emphasis will be on a hands-on approach that is designed to mirror, as much as possible, what a student's experience will be like in prosecuting or defending a commercial case when he or she is a practicing lawyer.

More and more hiring law firms are expecting law students to be as "trial ready" as possible when they enter private practice and join their firms' litigation departments. This course aims to provide students with that experience.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This seminar will trace the beginnings of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and go into depth on central aspects of the FPCA in theory and practice. It will also address issues around corruption in international business, the OECD initiatives the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, and other regional/supra/international attempts to reduce public corruption. We will also discuss compliance programs, investigations (including special issues related to cross border investigations), prosecutions/defense and resolution of FCPA issues.

• Type: Seminar

This simulation course will help you develop the written and oral advocacy skills you'll need to be an effective appellate litigator (and which are highly desirable for many other forms of legal practice as well). You'll learn how to prepare and write an appellate brief and how to prepare and deliver an oral argument in court. While at times we will discuss general principles of persuasion, the course will focus more on nitty-gritty matters such as how to organize an argument; how to write effectively using well-constructed paragraphs and clear and crisp sentences; how to prepare for and handle oral questioning; and when if ever to adroitly split an infinitive or to end a sentence with a preposition you are enamored with.

Class sessions will include presentations, interactive conversations, in-class exercises, and peer (and my) review of student work. Over the course of the semester, you'll produce several drafts of a brief or portions thereof, focusing both on merits arguments and on the other components of a complete appellate brief. Occasionally you may be assigned other short writing exercises, either for class time or for homework. You will work independently on some projects and collaborate with classmates on others. You'll also present two or more oral arguments during class time.

The simulation exercises will be based on a mock appellate case. For most and perhaps all assignments, I'll provide you with copies of court decisions, rules, and statutes deemed relevant to the mock case; little outside research will be required. This course will demand a good deal of your time and attention throughout the semester, which I expect will be repaid by lots of constructive feedback.

Your work will be assessed on the quality of your written projects, your oral presentations, and your class participation in general.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course provides an introduction to fundamentals of economic transactions and market analysis. Topics include negotiation and competitive bidding; the economic functions of contracts; the role of prices in aligning incentives, allocating risk, and minimizing disputes; the functions and operation of markets, including fundamentals of futures markets; the nature, sources, and consequences of transaction costs; and the role of firms and other organizations. The primary focus is on the value-enhancing function of contracts and markets, but attention will also be given to potential anticompetitive effects of business practices and their treatment by the antitrust laws.

• Type: Upper Class

The Child Advocacy Law Clinic provides students with an in-depth, interdisciplinary experience representing parents and children involved in the foster care system. With close support and supervision of an interdisciplinary faculty, students address the complex legal, social, emotional, ethical, and public policy questions of when and how the state ought to intervene in family life on behalf of children. The clinic seeks to introduce students to their new lawyer identity, the substantive and skill demands of this new role, and the institutional framework within which lawyers operate. Building on the field experience of actual case handling as a basis for analysis, it seeks to make students more self-critical and reflective about various lawyering functions they must undertake. Students are asked to integrate legal theory with real human crises in the cases they handle. Students will develop habits of thought and standards of performance and learn how to learn from raw experience for their future professional growth. Students must enroll for the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The clinic meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement and fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

The Child Advocacy Law Clinic provides students with an in-depth, interdisciplinary experience representing parents and children involved in the foster care system. With close support and supervision of an interdisciplinary faculty, students address the complex legal, social, emotional, ethical, and public policy questions of when and how the state ought to intervene in family life on behalf of children. The clinic seeks to introduce students to their new lawyer identity, the substantive and skill demands of this new role, and the institutional framework within which lawyers operate. Building on the field experience of actual case handling as a basis for analysis, it seeks to make students more self-critical and reflective about various lawyering functions they must undertake. Students are asked to integrate legal theory with real human crises in the cases they handle. Students will develop habits of thought and standards of performance and learn how to learn from raw experience for their future professional growth. Students must enroll for the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The clinic meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement and fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

The "modern" joint stock corporate form in China has a long history. Chinese business associations -- including complex partnerships tied to family, clan, village and guild structures -- have roots stretching back hundreds of years. In the modern era, China saw its first joint stock company establishment by reformist Qing Dynasty officials in 1872 -- only twenty-eight years after Britain's landmark Joint Stock Companies Act (1844), and simultaneous with France's general authorization of societes anonymes (1867). In 1904 and as the first part of a thoroughgoing legal reform program, the declining Qing dynasty promulgated a company law statute so important it was issued even prior to China's first template for a national Constitution. And now, at the dawn of the 21st century, Chinese companies seem omnipresent, whether purchasing companies or assets outside of China, or acting as the vehicle for the world's largest "global offerings" raising billions of dollars from investors all over the world.

This seminar will start by analyzing the roots of formal corporate organization in Imperial and then Republican China, focusing on corporations and corporate law at the end of the Qing Dynasty (1870 - 1911), during the Treaty Port era, and through the pre-Communist period (1912-1933, and 1945-1948). The course will also analyze the transition in the PRC after 1978 from state-owned enterprises into "corporatized" state-controlled (but publicly-invested) corporates, and the parallel effect of the PRC's initial foreign direct investment structures and law on the later formation of China's company law. Finally, the course will look at the company law systems in the UK Companies Act-determined Hong Kong Special Administrative Region after 1997 and the Japanese/German civil system and then U.S.-influenced Taiwan experience. In each case, students will become familiar with these diverse developments and mechanisms so as to inform the broadest possible understanding of the modern corporation - and corporate law - in the PRC today. Throughout, students will be asked to consider the unique role of formal (business association) law in the Chinese context, its interaction with divergent and often more powerful political economic structures, the relationship between corporate law and enterprise efficiency and national economic growth, the ever-changing balance between government control/regulation and autonomy of capital accumulating entities, and the impact of corporate law and principles on the development of civil society in the Chinese world. In the final segment, the seminar will focus on specific aspects of the "public" (listed) Chinese corporation, and the direct impact of the domestic and global capital markets -- and transnational or "foreign" securities regulation/corporate governance norms -- on corporate governance in China, the crafting of formal law and regulation, and application of the law via both public and private enforcement.

• Type: Seminar

With increasing frequency, cities and states are engaging in affirmative, plaintiff-side litigation. City and state initiated litigation, over the past decades, has resulted in some of the largest monetary judgments and settlement in U.S. history, including in the multistate tobacco litigation and the multi-jurisdiction opioid litigation. Cities and states also use affirmative litigation, often successfully, to push affirmative policy priorities--often against the federal government--in issue areas as diverse as climate change, civil rights, immigration, and others.

This class will take a close look at city and state-initiated litigation, from both a doctrinal and theoretical perspective. The course will cover the authority and causes of action cities and states have to sue. Case studies examined will include major, headline-grabbing cases including opioid litigation, gun litigation, climate-change litigation, and litigation against presidential administrations of both parties. We will also, however, examine smaller-scale cases brought at a local level, particularly in the State of Michigan. Through it all, we will examine broader questions: when is it appropriate for a city or state to sue? Who are their "clients," and who do they represent? And when should litigation be initiated by governments as opposed to private plaintiffs?

• Type: Seminar

This course covers the basic institutions of civil litigation in an adversary jury trial system. It explores the different procedural devices that arise out of the relationships among the parties, the judge, and the jury. Many litigation topics are covered, including issues relating to pleadings, discovery, other pretrial procedures, joinder, preclusion, and jurisdiction.

• Type: First Year Required

This course covers the basic institutions of civil litigation in an adversary jury trial system. It explores the different procedural devices that arise out of the relationships among the parties, the judge, and the jury. Many litigation topics are covered, including issues relating to pleadings, discovery, other pretrial procedures, joinder, preclusion, and jurisdiction.

• Type: First Year Required

Professor Chaney's section: This course will explore the practical, conceptual and procedural mechanics of civil rights practice through mock litigation of one or more simulated case studies. Students will engage the stages of litigation, including claim and defense development, preparing and answering pleadings, crafting written discovery, conducting effective depositions, and presenting oral argument, while exploring the nuanced issues that arise in civil rights practice, including client management, dealing with client and personal trauma and triggers, establishing noneconomic harm, and collaborative practice.

Professor Steinberg's section: This course examines how civil rights lawyers use federal civil rights litigation to address contemporary social problems. Students will develop and litigate a simulated case based on an actual racial profiling controversy in Ann Arbor. They will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, complaint drafting, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions and negotiations. Students will learn how to overcome the many procedural obstacles to justice posed by 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and explore the ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers when representing clients in civil rights cases. The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving social change when it is a part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.

Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.

The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election. It fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

These words -- flowing from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 -- have impacted anti-slavery efforts throughout U.S. history; sometimes as a terrible swift sword of Emancipation, sometimes as an uncashed promissory note or a set of loopholes to be exploited to justify prison labor, as a cause of action to be inexplicably ignored in favor of other approaches to abuse, or a remembered guarantee of rights that is rediscovered every other generation. The Thirteenth Amendment ebbs and flows, at times taking a back seat to the other Reconstruction Amendments in our Civil Rights history and practice (or to the Commerce Clause), only to penetrate through as an action-forcing frame to confront slavery and its legacies in domestic and international settings alike, whether at the Nuremburg Trials, through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in federal hate crimes legislation, or as manifested in the modern anti-trafficking regime.

We will examine modern anti-trafficking efforts by addressing the ongoing relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment and its history, not just as binding law but also as a norm-setter. As we explore the post-Emancipation law of slavery from the Antebellum period through the modern era, we will highlight common techniques and parallels in abolitionist activism and government enforcement. For instance, sugar boycotts of the early 1800s are echoed in today's solutions of Worker-led Social Responsibility, supply chain transparency, and end-user liability. Modern practices in prisons and detention centers are traceable to convict leasing schemes of the Jim Crow era. And the Progressive Era bifurcation of statutory and enforcement regimes around labor and sex trafficking (and the attitudes it reveals about immigration, morality, femininity, and whiteness) play out in current debates over the sex industry and technology policy.

A note on terminology. With an emphasis on legislative and law enforcement responses based on the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, this seminar will explore slavery and involuntary servitude -- terms set forth in the Amendment itself. In the last twenty years, the term "human trafficking" or "trafficking in persons" became dominant, with a recent resurgence of "slavery," especially in the Commonwealth Countries. For this seminar the many ways of naming compelled service will be used as being roughly synonymous, but we will explore the terms (and the tensions and structures that they reflect), definitional trade-offs, and such issues as race, gender, citizenship, rule of law, worker's rights, immigration, prisoners' and detainees' rights, victims' rights, colonialism, globalization, and federalism.

• Type: Seminar

[aka Michigan Clinical Law Program]

The Michigan Clinical Law Program (MCLP) is a 7-credit litigation clinic that gives students the chance to practice law in a variety of issue areas affecting low-income clients. Students must enroll in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The clinic covers many areas of the law. The civil case-load changes term to term, but may include landlord-tenant, consumer, family law, public benefits, employment discrimination, asylum and refugee, contracts, torts, and prisoners' civil rights cases. We try to keep a wide mix of work, from simple one-issue cases to class actions raising issues of first impression. On the criminal side, students handle misdemeanor cases for their short-term files, and do (mostly post-conviction) felony cases for their more complex files. Students do all of the work for their clients (under faculty supervision), including interviewing, counseling, legal research, discovery, negotiation, motion practice, bench and jury trials, and appeals. Students have "first-chair" responsibility for their cases and primary responsibility for their clients. MCLP students handle cases in the state district, circuit, and probate courts, as well as the federal district courts, state and federal administrative agencies, and appeals to all levels of both court systems. The seminar and field-work are graded. The MCLP meets the NY bar pro bono requirement. A more detailed description can be found at: https://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/generalclinic/Pages/default.aspx

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

[aka Michigan Clinical Law Program]

The classroom component of the MCLP includes some trial advocacy simulations to introduce basic trial skills. Students must enroll in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. Each student will also participate in two intensive trial practice exercises: a mock adversarial hearing at mid-term and a mock trial at the end of the term. Other class sessions address topics including the role of the lawyer, ethical issues in law practice, client-centered lawyering, the adversarial process, other related issues affecting the clinic's poor client population, and case rounds. The seminar and field-work are graded. The MCLP meets the NY bar pro bono requirement. For a more detailed description, see: https://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/generalclinic/Pages/default.aspx

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

This course primarily concerns the law governing credit transactions in which the collateral is personal property, but we will also touch briefly on some aspects of mortgages. Topics to be covered include collateral classification, attachment and perfection of security interests, priority among creditors, default and foreclosure, and the impact of bankruptcy law on secured transactions. We will pay close attention to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, the fount of this law, as well as other UCC provisions, but we will also examine some real estate laws across the states. Instruction is driven by problem sets discussed in class.

• Type: Upper Class

The CEC is one of the law school's transactional legal clinics and prepares students for corporate and transactional practice in all sectors, including the private and nonprofit sectors. The CEC's mission is to promote economic, racial, and social justice and community and economic development in Detroit and other disinvested urban areas of the region. The clinic supports vibrant, diverse, and sustainable communities by providing transactional legal assistance to neighborhood-based small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and social enterprises. Student attorneys interact with clients, normally represent multiple clients, and assume primary responsibility for all matters affecting their clients under close faculty supervision.

The CEC works with both start-up and established clients primarily in these areas:

* Entity formation, structuring, and governance

* Drafting, negotiating, and reviewing contracts and other agreements

* Tax

* Intellectual property

* Regulatory compliance

* Real estate and land use

* Employment

* Risk management

Student attorneys gain practical lawyering experience in the CEC. Student attorneys interview and counsel clients; develop and plan client strategy; draft legal documents, memos, and correspondence; manage relationships with clients, counterparties, co-counsel, and colleagues; identify legal issues, research them, and evaluate different alternatives; negotiate agreements; and implement client decisions. Student attorneys assess their own work and receive detailed feedback from CEC faculty in weekly meetings. The weekly seminar is a time for discussion of lawyering and client issues, including issues facing under-resourced communities in the Detroit metropolitan area and nationally, and the role race and racism have played in creating and continuing the adverse conditions in these communities and the processes of community and economic development in these urban areas.

The CEC prepares students for careers in corporate, government, or public interest practice. There are no formal prerequisites. Knowledge of business law, including the substantive law of enterprise organizations, tax, nonprofit, land use, intellectual property and employment is not necessary, but may be helpful.

Students receive seven credits for the Clinic: three for the seminar and four for the client work. Each component is graded separately. The CEC 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

The CEC is one of the law school's transactional legal clinics and prepares students for corporate and transactional practice in all sectors, including the private and nonprofit sectors. The CEC's mission is to promote economic, racial, and social justice and community and economic development in Detroit and other disinvested urban areas of the region. The clinic supports vibrant, diverse, and sustainable communities by providing transactional legal assistance to neighborhood-based small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and social enterprises. Student attorneys interact with clients, normally represent multiple clients, and assume primary responsibility for all matters affecting their clients under close faculty supervision.

The CEC works with both start-up and established clients primarily in these areas:

* Entity formation, structuring, and governance

* Drafting, negotiating, and reviewing contracts and other agreements

* Tax

* Intellectual property

* Regulatory compliance

* Real estate and land use

* Employment

* Risk management

Student attorneys gain practical lawyering experience in the CEC. Student attorneys interview and counsel clients; develop and plan client strategy; draft legal documents, memos, and correspondence; manage relationships with clients, counterparties, co-counsel, and colleagues; identify legal issues, research them, and evaluate different alternatives; negotiate agreements; and implement client decisions. Student attorneys assess their own work and receive detailed feedback from CEC faculty in weekly meetings. The weekly seminar is a time for discussion of lawyering and client issues, including issues facing under-resourced communities in the Detroit metropolitan area and nationally, and the role race and racism have played in creating and continuing the adverse conditions in these communities and the processes of community and economic development in these urban areas.

The CEC prepares students for careers in corporate, government, or public interest practice. There are no formal prerequisites. Knowledge of business law, including the substantive law of enterprise organizations, tax, nonprofit, land use, intellectual property and employment is not necessary, but may be helpful.

Students receive seven credits for the Clinic: three for the seminar and four for the client work. Each component is graded separately. The CEC 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

Comparative and International Competition Law

Over 120 jurisdictions have antitrust or competition laws, many of them of recent vintage. Although there are many commonalities and shared core assumptions, there are also many significant divergences. This class will compare principles of competition law in leading and emerging jurisdictions. It will also consider cross-border and international antitrust enforcement and counselling.

• Type: Upper Class

This course will examine aggregate litigation in the federal courts, with a primary focus on class actions and multidistrict litigation. Topics will include attorney compensation; class certification procedures and requirements; settlement of class actions and multidistrict litigation; and the preclusive effects of class and non-class litigation.

• Type: Upper Class

The course examines South Africa's negotiated transition from apartheid to a genuinely representative democracy. The class will spend considerable time on the decisions of the new Constitutional Court, exploring its shaping of a constitutional jurisprudence, particularly with regard to equality and socio-economic rights.

• Type: Upper Class

This course will first examine typical consumer debts incurred by individuals including car loans, home loans, credit cards, rent, tuition, domestic support obligations and various other types of secured and unsecured consumer debts. The course will next consider the various legal strategies available to financially distressed individuals and their creditors when these debts are not paid. Potential non-bankruptcy strategies for consumer debtors and creditors will be considered, but the course will focus primarily on bankruptcy law strategies and remedies for consumer debtors and creditors.

The course will explore in detail the planning, filing and the nuts and bolts implementation of chapter 7 and chapter 13 bankruptcy cases, both from the perspective of the consumer debtor and the creditors, and will include an examination of the forms that are used in consumer bankruptcy cases, the federal bankruptcy rules that govern the procedures in such cases, the legal issues that frequently arise in such cases and the judicial process for resolving those issues.

Through guest speakers, the course will introduce students to chapter 7 trustees, chapter 13 trustees, the United States Trustee, bankruptcy judges, practicing attorneys and other actors in the consumer bankruptcy world to gain familiarity with the real world law practice involving consumer bankruptcy cases. Class participation in problem solving exercises will be encouraged. There are no specific prerequisite classes that students must take before enrolling in this class, but a prior class in secured transactions is highly recommended as so many of an individual's consumer debts are secured by a mortgage or security interest.

Finally, the course will cover various recommendations to reform the treatment of consumer debtors and creditors under the Bankruptcy Code.

• Type: Upper Class

This practice simulation course introduces complex transactions through negotiation of critical terms in a variety of corporate, real estate and technology transactions. Students will learn: (1) the process that leads from letters of intent to closing documents; (2) methods and tactics for negotiation of critical terms; and (3) substantive and commercial issues in many terms common to a variety of transactions (such as disclosures and due diligence, representations, warranties, protection and licensing of intellectual property, confidentiality, compliance, indemnities, liability limits, dispute resolution and remedies). Written exercises and mock negotiations are supplemented with discussion of underlying legal considerations and business risks; negotiation strategies and tactics; and the roles of brokers, bankers, consultants and other intermediaries. Course work and exercises involve letters of intent, term sheets and contracts adapted from practice. Students will review, comment upon, revise and negotiate contract terms, much as they will in practice. Grades are based upon classroom participation and negotiation and written exercises. The course is highly recommended for students interested in other transactional courses and sophisticated business practice.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course is an introduction to commercial and consumer law and lays the foundation for advanced study in commercial transactions, corporations, restitution, consumer credit, and investment securities. Substantively, the Contracts course deals with how contracts are formed, which contracts are valid, when a contract has been breached and the various remedies for breach, including damages, specific performance, and restitution. The course is also designed to introduce the student to legal methodology and the techniques of statutory interpretation, particularly in connection with the Uniform Commercial Code.

• Type: First Year Required

This course is an introduction to commercial and consumer law and lays the foundation for advanced study in commercial transactions, corporations, restitution, consumer credit, and investment securities. Substantively, the Contracts course deals with how contracts are formed, which contracts are valid, when a contract has been breached and the various remedies for breach, including damages, specific performance, and restitution. The course is also designed to introduce the student to legal methodology and the techniques of statutory interpretation, particularly in connection with the Uniform Commercial Code.

• Type: First Year Required